


Of Murder Suits and Person Suits, and Those That Wear Them

by Blanca_Angelic_Loveless



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 02:04:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13424400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blanca_Angelic_Loveless/pseuds/Blanca_Angelic_Loveless
Summary: Pre-Canon divergence where Alana was having that affair with Hannibal and due to the consequences of that it just kinda diverges farther from there.





	1. The Mistress Becomes The Queen

Hannibal arrived back home at precisely 3:18 in the morning from a particularly easy hunt with a body in his trunk. He pulls into his driveway, and it surprises him to see Alana's car park in her usual spot on the right side. He pulls into his own spot, and heads inside to greet her and inquire as to what he owes for such a late visit. Alana stops by his house unannounced often, they were seeing each other after all, but she'd never shown up quite this late. She's clearly let herself in, and Hannibal thinks he can leave the meat on ice in the trunk for the night, not daring to risk sneaking it in after she's gone to sleep, as she'll surely be spending the night.

"Alana! What are you doing here so late?” Hannibal calls sweetly upon entering his home.

"Come up stairs and see, Hannibal!" He hears her playful shout from the upper floor. That playfulness tells Hannibal to what exactly he owns this late night visit. It vexed him slightly that she has chosen tonight of all night for this, but he has no problem taking full advantage of the beauty no doubt laying on his bed, he'll happily trade one treat for another. He goes up stairs with a grin, after hiding his car keys just to be safe. His bedroom door is open and Sweet Alana is-

"I found your basement." Alana snarls from behind him, blocking him inside his bedroom having emerged from wherever she'd really called him. He hears the click of a gun, and it must be one of his, because his Alana doesn't own a gun. "Put your hands behind your head and walking forwards three steps."

Hannibal's grin only widens as he moves slowly to comply. He's too impressed by what she's managed, to feel anything akin to anger at her, his clever Alana. His clever, confuse, so in love, and heartbroken, Alana. He can smell it on her now, what's really brought her here, all the way to his home in the middle of the night.

"What basement Sweet Al-"

"Don't call me that! Explain! Explain the basement, Hannibal!" She shouts.

"I don't need to explain it. You're smart enough to to figure it out. Tell me, why have you not called the police?"

He knows exactly why she hasn't called the police. Maybe if she'd found the basement last night, before she'd discovered the other thing. Maybe then she'd have had him arrested and lived with the solitary shame of her affair with a serial killer. But not now, she wasn't the only one his incarceration would affect, she couldn't do it now. He waits for her to answer, and when she doesn't, he says instead "Calling the police would mean our child would grow up with a father in prison. I'm quite glad you didn't call the police Alana. I promise the child shall grow up wanting for nothing-"

"Shut up! God-don't turn around! I'll shoot you I swear!" She says, and Hannibal hears a sob.

"No, you won't shoot me. Just like you won't call the police. You value the idea of a proper family too much, you wouldn't deprive your child of its father. You couldn't bare it after the way you yourself were deprived.”

Alana’s father had been a loving man, or so Alana claims, but Hannibal has very little reason to doubt it. Loving until the moment he wasn't, because he'd been a drug addict, and as time had gone on, the embrace of drugs had been far more comforting than the embrace of his little girl, or her mother. When Alana was seven her father overdosed on heroin, and after making a full, if hard fought recovery, pled guilt to the possession of heroin and other illegal drugs resulting a three year sentence that was cut short by another overdose of heroin only nine months later.

Alana had visited her father with her mother in prison a few times, and every time had been awful. She'd had to go through metal detectors, and get pat-downs before they let her through, and she’s had to talk to her dad through a telephone and see him through a window. It had been awful. But the most horrible, most embarrassing part of her dad being arrested was the next year in school when the class was asked to talk about their families and, because no one had told her she didn't have to tell them about her father, she’d gotten up and told the whole class, cheeks red and eyes watering, that her father died in jail of drugs. No one had laughed or made jokes, at that time or after, but it was the crippling shame she'd felt in the moment and every moment after that motivated her.

She was never going to do drugs, she was never going to marry and man or woman who did drugs. Her children wouldn't have to talk to their parents through windows. Her children wouldn't have to explain why one of their parents wasn't around. Her children would never have to look at other happy families and fetel jealousy.

Alana had told Hannibal all these things in confidence, and he was glad for that. It made her hesitate, and now he could use her hesitation to keep her quiet. 

“You and I have that in common Alana. I won't harm you, I was never planning it, and I certainly won't now. Lower the gun and I'll explain everything."

"How about I kee- keep the gun, and you explain anyway!" She snarls. "Like how the Hell you even know I'm pregnant given the fact I only found out tonight!"

"I can smell it." Hannibal answers. She'd never believed in his heightened sense of smell before, but he imagines she's warming up to the idea now.

"And the basement?!" 

"It's my workshop, so to speak. There's a body in the trunk of my car now as well. Arthur Vandellen, a particularly crude social worker I met three month ago while shopping outside of Baltimore. I was planning to carve out several of his organs before driving his body back to its home and creating a rather spectacular masterpiece for your friend Jack Crawford to find. Call the police Alana, or else you're an accomplice. Put down the gun, and talk, or else our child will grow up forever ashamed to be the spawn of the Chesapeake Ripper."

"Oh God!" He hears her crying, he realises she had not put that together then. "No.. no no no." The last word comes out more like a plea for him to stop being the Chesapeake Ripper, then an actually denial of the fact, and Hannibal wishes to stop her grieving. Slowly he turns around, finding Alana standing in the doorway, gun in hand, but limp at her side. Her face is twisted in the picture of pure misery. He steps forward, slowly, and opens his arms to embrace her.

"No, no, no, no," she shakes her head, taking a step back, not quickly enough to escape Hannibal's arms.

“Shh, Sweet Alana," He rubs her back gently, nuzzling her cheek. "All will be well. We're having a baby. I hope it's a girl, don't you?" When she says nothing he pulls away and leads her towards the bed. She complies listlessly, gun forgotten in her hand until Hannibal is taking it away, and then it's too late to do anything. 

Alana lays still and quiet in Hannibal's embrace under the soft and familiar covers, thinking and thinking, unable to muster the courage to move. She finally speaks again, the first sound either has made in hours when the first grey lights of dawn start filtering through the windows. "So you won't kill me? Or... the baby?"

"No, and I promise the baby will never know, not if you don't with them too." Hannibal says, his voice holds no trace of the sleep which he had been feigning.

Alana huffs a small laughed at that. Why would she want for the baby to know? "You won't make me part of it?" 

"Oh, Alana," he sighs, pity lacing his voice. "You know you are a part of it. You know, and you will keep it a secret. You will help me cook, you will eat the food, you will help me clean the kitchen and the basement. I coul-"

"Oh god," Alana gags. "Th-the food-The food?!"

“Is made of people, yes." Hannibal answers, then continues. "I could kill someone in the next room and if you knew and did nothing, would that not be participation?"

Hannibal rises from the bed before she can answers, and heads for the ensuite, leaving her alone with his gun on the nightstand and her phone in her pocket. "Call the police Alana. Call Jack Crawford."  
\---

Alana doesn't call the police. She can't explain why, because murder is so much worse that drug abuse, but it's something in her gut, and not a survival instance to please her captor until she reaches freedom she's shamefully sure. No, it's something else she doesn't think she'll ever have a name for that stops her Monday morning from tell Jack she's found the Chesapeake Ripper because she accidentally tripped in his kitchen and found the hidden entrance to Hannibal's basement. Instead she tells him with a watery smile that she's having a baby.

Months go by, and she's not sure how it happened, neither ever says the words, but to her relief she and Hannibal have clearly broken up. He doesn't greet her with a kiss anymore, instead he asks after the baby, a little girl she's learned, just like he wanted. He doesn't invite her to spend her weekends at his home either, but he does let her keep her key, and he does invite her over for dinner- always alongside other guests, never alone- and she can never decline, no matter how much she wants to. She watches others, sometimes strangers, sometimes friends, become the punchline of a psychopath's cruel joke.

And then one night, when she's seven months along, and Hannibal has Alana over for dinner with Doctor Frederick Chilton, Alana stops being the punch line, and starts telling the jokes as well. For years she'd silently blame Chilton’s superior-than-thou attitude and all around enormous ego for pushing her over the edge.

Chilton, to no great aid in his defense, was well into his glass of wine when he says "And anyway I don't think the Chesapeake Ripper will be killing again anytime soon. He hasn't admitted anything of course, but I'm almost certain one of my newest wards, a surgeon caught literally in the middle of harvesting organs, is the Ripper."

Dr. Chilton's too focused on his plate to see the way Alana look at Hannibal, as if to say "can you believe this idiot", and too tipsy to hear her tone as she say, "Well isn't that something? I certainly hope you're right Dr. Chilton, I'd hate for you to be wrong and the real Ripper find out someone else is taking credit for his work."

“Yes," Hannibal says, the barest hint of a smile gracing his lips. "Who knows how the Ripper would react. He may kill many victims just to prove he's still a free man, and that no one who gets caught could possibly be him."  
\---

Her daughter is born happy and healthy and Alana loves her. She'd been afraid she wouldn't. Up until the moment the nurse put her in Alana's arms, Alana hadn't thought she could've love anything that was half Hannibal Lecter, but as soon as she saw her, she had a name for the unnameable feeling that had kept her quiet about Hannibal all these months. Well, she thought she had a name, she supposes Hannibal ought to have a say. Not the final say, but a say nonetheless.

Hannibal surprises her by being there at the birth, because she hadn't called him, or told anyone at the hospital to call him. But he was there, holding her hand and whispering reassurances that made her want to scream all throughout the ordeal. He asks to hold the baby after Alana as held her for awhile. Alana passes the baby over gently.

"Oh my." Hannibal says, smiling a kind of smile Alana has never seen on his face, down at their baby. "Aren't you beautiful."

"Have you thought of any names? I've got one." She says tiredly.

“I do too.” he answers, smiling still at the baby. “Or I did. I was intent on Mischa, after my sister you know, but now I think it would be an injustice to this little girl to tie her to the memory of her aunt with no chance at an identity solely her own...”

"Michelle then." Alana says with unmistakable finality, slightly angered she'd become attached to a name to honor Hannibal's sister when he'd just let the idea go. "You can still call her Mischa, but she won't have to be only Mischa.”

"Thank you, Sweet Alana." He flashes this new smile at her.  
\---

Alana's Becoming start off on a whim.

Michelle is three months old, and Alana is standing in the grocery story, Michelle's baby carrier in her cart, looking at all the different types of packaged meats when she realized it's been a year. A year since she learned what Hannibal was, and became a practicing, if reluctant cannibal... A year, and nothing. People were dying, being mutilated, cooked and eaten, and nothing. She thinks about how easy Hannibal makes it all seem, how tempting he makes it, how she's already so far gone, why not go the extra mile? Why eat store bought processed meats when she could hand pick anything?

Alana remembers the business card she'd collected from a women vehemently protesting outside the Clinic Alana had been to the day after she'd confronted Hannibal nearly a year ago. The women had thrown a water bottle at Alana's head on her way in, calling her a murderer. Alana had sat in the waiting room thinking about how she should feel sick because she was a murderer, maybe not a direct one, and maybe not yet, but the next time the Chesapeake Ripper struck, that's the day Alana Bloom would be a murderer. She should've feel guilty, but all she could feel was fury as she thought about the Rolodex of business cards Hannibal had shown her that morning, after she hadn't called the police.

She'd gotten up and left before her name was called to met with the doctor. In her rage she'd faked sobs, and told the woman she'd helped Alana see the error of her ways, and asked for any way to contact the woman. The woman had handed her a church's business card, and written her own name and number on the back, promising Alana she could call, day or night, if she "ever felt the urge to kill again." Alana had driven halfway to Hannibal's office before realising what she was doing. In her shame she'd hidden the business card away, and forced herself to forget about it. That was, until now.

She looks at Michelle, sleeping soundly for the moment. "I never did properly thank her." Alana muses cynically at Michelle quietly. She leaves the empty cart in the store, and calls Hannibal from the parking lot.

"Hello Alana," he sounds pleasantly surprised, the smug bastard.

"What are you doing? Right now. Later tonight."

"Nothing in particular, all my patients have gone for the day. Why, has something happened? Is Mischa alright?"

"What- No, yeah, she's fine, sleeping now. In the back seat. I just- I-"

"Are you alright, Alana?"

"Yeah... I just..." She can't make herself say it. It shouldn't be this hard to say, not really. She's already a cannibal, but she’s lost all the confidence she'd had inside the store. She already knows the names of all the people she eats, all the reasons Hannibal killed them. Why not take the next step? She wants to, some sick part of her that's clearly grown too strong while she wasn't looking, but there was still this tiny piece of her screaming just hang up! You can still deny everything, you can still- "I've got a business card in my wallet. And the story of how I got it is one I'd like to discuss in person. In private."

"My kitchen is always open to my friends, Alana."

"I'll call a babysitter."

"No need, see you both tonight." He hangs up without another word spoken.

Hannibal is, as expected, in the kitchen when she lets herself into his home for the first time in a year. She takes Michelle out of the carrier when she finds him and sets her in the overly extravagant crib that of course Hannibal had set up in the kitchen. The first thing she does when Michelle is settled is go for the beer. The beer that is made with people, and tasted so much better for it.

Hannibal is as dapper as ever, in a white button down and wearing an apron as he oh-so-casually carves up a very human heart. "What changed your mind so completely today of all days?" He asks without looking up from his work.

"You're too careful, we're not getting caught. There are not Window-Visits in Michelle’s future.”

"No, there are not." Hannibal agrees. "Does this new found freedom from consequence excite you Alana?"

"Did it excite you in Florence?" She counters.

Hannibal stops, and looks her in the eyes. "Yes." He moved to start packing everything away, all the meats and chop vegetables, from the dinner me must be planning to have tomorrow night.

Not tonight, why not tonight?

“Well there you go. I’m excited to do this. It feels like… I've been sitting willingly in an open cage, and now I’ve finally worked up the courage to get out and see.”

“Well put.” He places everything in the refrigerator and washes his hands. "So tell me about this business card, Sweet Alana."

"I got it from a woman nearly a year ago. She... was protesting abortion." Alana has never told Hannibal about that day, she's afraid even now that he might turn on her for even having thought of killing his baby.

Hannibal pauses, just for a second, but Alana takes a step back anyway. He switches off the water, and grabs a cloth with which to dry his hands. "You say she was, as in I assume, at the time you collected the card." He turns to face her. "What reason would you have had to be anywhere near such a protest."

"I had a brief moment of irrationality.” She answer cautiously, looking him in the eyes, refusing to fear the beast. “I thought aborting the baby would make it easier to turn you in. I didn't make it past the waiting room. Anyway," she doesn't let Hannibal comment, instead hands him the business card. "She threw a water bottle at me. I was actually halfway to your office with her card that day before I stopped."

"So she is deserving of death because she threw a water bottle at you?"

Deserving. The word hits Alana hard. She was playing God. Choosing who deserves to live and die based on her own set of morals, her totally corrupt set of morals. Her stomach knots just a little.

"She... deserves it," Alana says carefully, as much to herself as Hannibal. "Because she does not respect or value the opinions of others, especially if those opinions contradict her own. She deserves it because she is cruel to those whom she knows nothing about. Because she threw a water bottle at a woman who was contemplating abortion because she was scared for her life, and never did it cross her mind to ask why those women are doing what they are doing.”

"You sound hesitant. Even as you justify it to yourself, and justify it well I might add, you sound as though ridding the world of such an Undesirable would be a bad thing." Hannibal finishes cleaning up, and walks over to pick Mischa up, cradling her tiny, trusting head so gently in his hands that you would never suspect.

Alana doesn't know what to say. They both know it would be a bad thing. A morally corrupt thing. An unjust, vulgar, things to do. But so is cannibalism, and it's too late to back out of that one, so all she can do is give him a look of distressed frustration when he turns around, baby in his gentle arms, before taking another long swig of her beer.

"If you see something, say nothing, and drink to forget." She'd hear once, somewhere.

Hannibal goes on, handing the business card back to her carefully. "I see no reason in letting pigs run free Alana, but if you must be fickle with your meat, go find a roaming wolf."

"Like you maybe?" She snorts, and can’t stop herself from laughing. It's a terrible thing to say, really, but she doesn't care. It's funny on some morbid level she hadn’t realised she’s stooped to. She should kill the cannibal.

"No," Hannibal chuckles sitting in the plush chair in the corner, eyes only for Michelle. "Personally, I think this Eliza Carlson is the perfect victim for your Becoming. Go upstairs and shower, scrub off all of your make up, dry your hair and brush out any loose strands, I'll leave something for you to wear in my guest room."

“Wait, tonight? We can’t go tonight!” What kind of an idiot is he!?

“Why not?” He asks.

“You have a baby in your hands for one thing! A baby, I will remind you, I was going to call a babysitter for, for this exact reason!”

“Sweet Alana, I assure you Mischa will not be a hinderance. You simply couldn't call a babysitter. No one must be able to say you were not home tonight.”

“Jesus Christ you are insane.” Alana growls in resignation. There's no fight left in her for Hannibal, she's just going to trusts him with this... God, she must be insane too. Her three month old is going to witness her commit murder and Alana trusts her insane ex-boyfriend to make it work. Alana is taking the insanity plea if they’re caught. That’s the only thing that could be making her trust a psychopath with her and her baby’s life.

She finishes her beer on the way up the stairs, and after her shower she dresses in the light blue, silky, button-up blouse and tan pants Hannibal had left her. She wonders if he really wants her to wear the earrings and necklace he's left on the bed next to the clothes, as she laces up the light blue boots he left her as well. She finds that yes, he must have been expecting just that when he walks in wearing one of his finer suits of the same blue and tan she is, and holding Mischa, who is dressed in a new onesie of a matching blue as her parents. She puts the accessories on wordlessly.

"Why are we dressed so expensively, Hannibal?" Alana questions as she sits on the guest bed, Mischa laying out in front of her, her back to Hannibal allowing him to pull her thick brown hair into the tightest bun she's ever felt. "Aren't we going to ruin them? Have to burn them?"

"No, we won't. We're going to wear something over these clothes. The suits are clear however, and I see no reason to dress down for the occasion." He answers, placing the last bobby pin in place and taking a bit of hair gel to her more stubborn baby curl. "There, now you can leave not evidence."  
\---

Alana waits in the car, in the back seat with Michelle, while Hannibal breaks into the Carlson’s house. Their driveway was situated in the back of the house, and Hannibal had the gall to pull right in and give Alana the perfect seat from which to watch Hannibal pick the lock on the back door, and disappear into the dark house. Minutes tick by and Alana begins to worry. Eliza’s Facebook page had said she had a husband, maybe he had woken up while Hannibal was in there- no, surely she would have heard something, seen a light turn on, something. She takes a breath, Hannibal knows what he’s doing.

Hannibal emerges minutes lates, carrying a limp Eliza Carlson in his arms, his plastic suit covered in blood, but none of it seems to be his or Eliza's. Alana has to lean up to the front and open the passenger side door so that Hannibal can sit Eliza into the plastic-covered passenger seat. He even buckled her in.

"Who's blood is that?" Alana hisses when Hannibal is back in the driver's seat.

"Their dog's. They had a corgi." Hannibal says nonchalantly.

“You killed their dog- Yeah. No, of course you did. Where are we going now?”

“Somewhere ironic. How's Mischa?"

"Uh, she's fine, she's asleep for the moment. Y'know," she says, not looking away from Michelle. "They tell you that babies will drive you insane waking you up at all hours of the night, but they really undersell it."

"When she is older, I will have no problem taking her for the weekends. Or any other day if you need a break."

"You know what's weird? I can't imagine you as a dad. I see how you are with Michelle now, but what about, I don't know, birthday parties and soccer games? You are going to be there for those, right? Are you going to wear a suit to a soccer game Hannibal?"

"I do own more casual clothing, Alana." There's a little whine from the passenger seat that they both ignore. "But yes, I promise I will be there for every special event, whether she joins a children's orchestra or a flag football team at the local YMCA. I promise I will be a proper father to my Mischa."

"What's Lithuanian for "dad"?" Alana asks after a moment.

"Tėtis. Why?"

"Is she going to call you that?"

"I suppose so. What is she to call you?"

"Mom is fine with me." Alana says. “This is the weirdest conversation I've ever had. We've kidnapped someone and we're just talking about our baby." She thinks she might be going a little hysterical.

Eliza makes another strange sound, but whatever paralytic Hannibal has injected her with prevents her from doing any more.

"Please be quiet Mrs. Carlson, we're almost there." Hannibal says, smiling so damn smugly, then says "Conversation is good Alana, it distracts from boredom and discomfort, and... other such things."

He means the kidnapping. Alana knows he means the kidnapping.  
\----

Somewhere Ironic turns out to be the church the Carlson's attends.

“No.” Alana says when they're parked in the back of the already small parking lot. Hannibal fixes her with a curious look. “We are not turning this into a- whole- a religious- thing!”

“Are you religious Alana?"

"No? So!?"

"Then we cannot make it religious. We can however make a... statement. Tell me what you know about the Chesapeake Ripper-”

“He’s an asshole!” Alana shouts, causing Eliza to groan, her eyelids fluttering just the slightest.

“-based solely on what the FBI has gathered.” He finishes with an unimpressed frown.

“He’s a pretentious, showy, asshole who isn’t defacing a church- and would you stop whining you're not going anywhere!?" She adds to Eliza, who's whines haven't grown in volume, only frequency.

“No. He isn't, but She is.” Hannibal says coyly.

“What- No- I’m not the Ripper! This is not me being the Ripper!” Alana shouts again. Michelle begins to stir unhappily next to her.

“Will you be your own killer then?" He turns to face her. "Have your own alias in the paper? Why not be the Chesapeake Ripper? I will be teaching you everything, your kills will end up being labeled a copycat of mine otherwise, and you deserve far better. You can even introduce me to Jack Crawford. Secure us both alibis in his eyes.”

“Oh my God are you using me? Is that what this is?” Alana's forced to lower her voice, or risk waking her daughter. Somehow this is what it boils down to. Not that she's about to commit murder, but that her ex is going to use her murder and her connections to cover his own and that's what feels offensive. 

“You came to me Alana.” He tilts his head towards her with one eyebrow raised as if to say that she was using him, and she wants to smack him. She thinks he must have sensed this, as he quickly gets out of the car,and circling around to open the padang er side door. The parking lot is small, just like the church, and almost invisible from the main road. They will not be seen.

Alana stays in the car for a moment before getting out with a huff, and accepting that she's going to become the Chesapeake Ripper. That Hannibal Lecter has wrapped himself so tightly around her she doesn't know how to get away, and knows she doesn't want too. She acknowledged that she's been manipulated, or conditioned, on some level by Hannibal into accept this as she helps him carry Eliza Carlson across the parking lot, leaving Mischa in her carseat for the moment. That his need for her to murder likely stems from a need for family, a united family of him, her, and Michelle, whom they call Mischa after his deceased sister. But she also knows, as she watches Hannibal tie fishing wire around Eliza's limp, un-protestant wrists, that she was ready to do this that day, after she found out what he really was. There had been no time for manipulation then, this is who she is and what Hannibal wants her to become. What she wants to Become.

They're both silent as Hannibal hands her a knife. Eliza Carlson in wide awake now, but other than her half-open eyes you wouldn't guess it. She's tied with fishing wired to two support beams, arms outstretched and her only mean of supporting herself. Her wrist are bloody from where the wires are digging into her flesh.

It's this moment, when she's covered from head to toe in plastic, her daughter is in the arms of a killer, and the hilt of the stainless steel knife is being pressed into her hand, that she feels for the first time that night. And she feels normal. She's going to kill this woman and all her reservation and morals are re-adjusting and she feels perfectly normal. "Where do I cut?" She asks the knife in her hands.

"Her neck if you like," Hannibal answers for it. "Her wrists if you'd like to be more poetic.”

Alana takes a breath, and says to Eliza softly "Mrs. Carlson. You probably don't remember me, but we met once, almost a year ago. You threw a water bottle at me and called me a murderer. I wasn't yet, technically. But I almost was. Not because of the abortion, but because I almost told my... boyfriend about you that day. You would have died then. I want to thank you for distracting me, before I do this. Our daughter's three months old now, and we owe her life to you. You told me to call you if I ever felt the urge to kill. I appreciate your offer- I don't know who else would have taken your place if it wasn't for you." Alana imagines that if these words were coming from Hannibal's mouth they would be said with amusement, that he would be smirking. Alana means ever words.

Alana goes for the neck, it's sloppy but she gets the whole front of the woman's neck in one slow slice. The blood sprays out, something Alana wasn't expecting, and it hits her in the face. Alana feels it hot on her cheeks, and her chin, and dripping in her eyes, dripping down her neck, and definitely ruining her expensive shirt.

Alana watches the blood pour down Eliza Carlson's front, ruining the soft floral print of her night shirt, and the woman doesn't make another sound. Alana doesn't feel righteous in the moment she takes a life, but she does feel satisfied. She's fixated on the blood that looks black in the moonlight, and she can't look away.

"Freedom is often overwhelming to those who have never felt they were trapped." Hannibal says, perhaps misinterpreting her silence.

"Relinquishing control to the will of another can often be the most freeing thing." She counters. Finally taking her eyes away from what she's done. "I'm glad you took the reins and showed me- this."

He’s placing Mischa in her bloody hands, ruining the babies outfit before she knows it, and turns her toward the car “Here, go sit in the car, while I…” He shrugs dismissively. “Cut out her uterus for a start.”

The clock on the dashboard reads 12:48am, she's been up since six o'clock that morning but Alana feels like she's only just woken up


	2. The King Begins a Courtship

Will Graham joined the staff at the Academy three years later, and Alana meets him in the staff room of all places. She's sitting on one of the couches, nursing her coffee and finishing the latest chapter of Les Miserables when he walks in. His presence is a quiet one as he set about making his own cup of coffee. She sees his ID badge and immediately she recognizes the name that's been in the tip of everyone's tongue all week.

"Will Graham?" She smiles when he looks up, clearly unhappy that the silence has been broken.

"Uh, yeah. Hi." He stutters into the bowl of sugar packets he's searching through, organising them almost unconsciously as he goes.

"I'm Alana. Alana Bloom. Your class is just down the hall from mine."

"Oh?" He says, clearly unimpressed.

"My students won't stop talking about you, I'm tempted to come sit in on one of your lectures."

"Feel free, it's not as spectacular as they think." He takes his coffee mug, and leaves without another word. Something about his attitude strikes her as false, like one of the well constructed masks she and Hannibal wear.

She digs. It's rude, almost the sort of rude that usually turns one into dinner, but Will Graham has that little voice in the back of her head that sounded like Hannibal shouting that there's something more! Look closer!

She finds nothing but a string of self diagnoses and a closed investigation into the murder of his late wife. He and his step-son had been investigated thoroughly, but the police had never found any evidence to convicted either and he'd gained full custody of his step-son Walter, with whom he'd been living in New Orleans, Louisiana, despite the best efforts and later protests of of both sets of the boy’s biological grandparents.

Looking through the list of killers Will has identified or caught with his empathy disorder, she see right through the mask he'd shown her. As she prints out the full details of the case of the death of Molly Graham, she thinks Hannibal would love him. I should give him to Hannibal.

Hannibal it turns out, while highly impressed with Will Graham’s brilliant empathy, is more strongly drawn to the fact that he likely murdered his late wife Molly Graham (nèe Cooper) and the death of Tanner Foster, Walter’s biological father, only a few years prior. The boy's name on his original birth certificate read Walter Cooper Foster, but it's show to have been changed to Walter Cooper Graham only days after Molly had married Will. It's strikes Hannibal as odd because rarely does a mother give her child their stepfather's surname. He wonders if Will Graham was not simply more interested in the child than a family, and then it follows, Hannibal wonders what is so interesting about young Wally.

He implores Alana invites them to dinner.

She finds Will in his classroom the next week and invites him to a dinner party Hannibal has organized along with other friends of both her and Hannibal. He tries to decline, staring at her chin, not her eyes, claiming it probably wasn't the sort of event you brought a kid to. She tell him there will be plenty of children to keep Walter company, her own included.

"C'mon Will, Hannibal's dinners are to die for, everyone who's anyone goes."

I mean what I say, Will hear his empathy speak for her when he looks her in the eyes. I don't speak in hyperboles. We know what you are, I see the gears in your brain working as you open your eyes to what I might be... What might I be? Well, I've invites you to see, haven't I?  
\---

The dinner is surprising extravagant, far more so then Will honestly thought it would be, but then, he hadn't yet met Dr. Lecter.

Will makes reluctant small talk with Hannibal's high-society friends, while Walter reluctantly runs about the house with the group of children following the little blonde girl who must be Alana Bloom and Hannibal Lecter's daughter, before the dinner begins. Will sees what they are as he watches them from across the room. The way they watch their guests eat the hors d'oeuvre before they eat their own... it's almost erotic.

Dr. Lecter catches his eye from across the room, and smirks as he eats his own... well, whatever these hors d'oeuvres are. Will takes his own and, maintaining eye contact, places it in his mouth slowly. Dr. Lecter winks at him before turning back to his more naive guests.

The dinner is extravagant, but truly delicious. The children are sat separately, on tall chairs at one of the kitchen tables where little Michelle Lecter is playing host like her Father in the dining room.

Will has the unfortunate privilege of sitting at the adult table. Frederick Chilton, who Will greatly dislikes, has been going on and on a majority of the night, across the table from Will, about his work a the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, makes the mistake during dessert of commenting on Will's empathy disorder.

"Really Mr. Graham you must let me poke around in that brain of yours. Even just a little, I'm sure would be an experience of a lifetime."

"No thanks," Will says bluntly taking a spoonful of a dessert he is almost certain is made with human blood, not the cow's blood Hannibal as told them all. "I've seen enough psychiatrists in the wake of my wife's... death. The experience was anything but enlightening."

Other smaller conversations die in favor of this juicy bit of gossip. Dr. Lecter says "Frederick does have a point Will, your brain would be a delicacy all its own for any psychiatrists."

"Please," Will scoffs, playing along. "My brain would be a better delicacy in your kitchen then in the hands of a psychiatric ward."

Hannibal leans toward Will, who's sitting next to Alana on Hannibal's right, and smirks. "Don't tempt me."

There's a beat of silence before Alana fakes a snorts, and the other guests take their cue to join in.

The stage has been set, we've planned this dinner meticulously. Every guest and every dish was planned with a purpose. Even the seating was planned, each guest is where they needed to be to best suit our design, the main player at the head of the table, and the useless other, only there to take up space, pushed farther down. The children are moved out of the cross fire entirely.

We think we have found someone like ourselves, but a private conversation could end bloody, we wouldn't want to be caught, wouldn't want him to be caught. Wouldn't want to hurt the children.

We will make no secrets of ourselves, but only the most aware, only someone like us, will see through our thin costumes to the actors beneath. Only the guest of honor will understand the meaning of this performance.

"We'll need a volunteer from the audience, would anyone like to join us up on stage?"  
\---

"Did you enjoy tonight Wally? Make any friends?" Will ask Walter once they're well out of Baltimore, headed home to Wolf Trap.

"Friends? No." Walter scoffs from the passenger's seat, where he’s kicked his feet up onto the dashboard. "Mischa was fun at least and really smart for a three year old, but she puts way too much “fancy” in “fancy dinner party”.”

"They're killers." He says bluntly, he’s never believed in sheltering Walter from the truth of things.

"No way! How'd you figure that out?" Walter grins, not at all surprised his dad's taken them to dine at a murderer's house.

"They told me. Dr. Lecter made a joke about eating my brain during dinner. And Dr. Bloom insisted Lecter's dinner parties were "to die for" when she invited us."

"Wait, so they told you told you, or they accidentally told you?" Wally questions, disbelieving that anyone would be so forthcoming about such a lifestyle with a stranger, but also as disbelieving that anyone keeping it secret could be so tactless.

"They meant to do it." Will answers.

"Was it a threat? Do we have to kill them now?" Walter sit up in excitement.

"No, it was… more of an invitation. They want to be our friends."

Walter slumps, turning to watch the trees pass by. "Two families of murdered would find each other, though."

"Two families of cannibals." Will corrects.  
\---

"Everyone has thought about killing someone. The Chesapeake Ripper thinks about it all the time. He's always designing the next kill." Will is saying to his class as Alana comes to stand in the entrance to his room. It's been two weeks since the dinner and Will has not approached her. She think it's safe to approach him though, and so she's dismissed her class early so she could catch Will without hassle. The picture on the overhead is that of a the Wound Man, Alana's latest kill, and she smirks at it before lowering her gaze to smirk at Will Graham himself. He's still addressing the class, or maybe he is addressing her, when he says "So tell me your design. Why did this man deserve to die?"

After his class gathered their things and left the two of them alone, Alana walks up to his desk. "The Chesapeake Ripper? You sure you want to start with him so earlier in the year? He barely leaves any evidence."

"I wanted to remind the students that sometimes you can't find evidence because this is real life and those who make their living out of killing know how not to get caught."

"Why do you think this man deserve to die?" Alana asks.

"Because the Ripper thought he was a pig. He thinks all his victims are pigs. The only interesting thing is the spontaneity of the mutilation. He clearly had plans to display this man another way and changed it last minutes. Stabbing this man in so precise a way, so extensively, it was less the self-given gift it was meant to be, and more like a... an art commission for another, painted on only the finest paint of the Ripper's emotions he could find. Which is the odd part, because the Ripper usually only kills for himself."

"You really do ‘interpret the evidence’." She smiles. He wasn't wrong, Alana had been planning something else, something to show Mischa, who wanted to see her Mamytė and Tėti's work on the news, as a birthday present. But her original vision had paled in comparison to the inspiration that struck her in the man's garage surrounded by all those tools. Alana leaves without another word and it will be years before she lets herself be alone with him in public again.

Will sits down at his desk, knowing she's just confirmed his suspicious. She and Dr. Lecter were both Chesapeake Ripper. Two killers killing in the exact same manner, as a team to insure that neither was without an alibi for at least a few of the murders, enough to plant a seed of doubt into any investigators mind.

He looks down at his desk and finds a black business card with gold lettering for Dr. Lecter's office in Baltimore.  
\---

Will's first private meeting with Dr. Lecter goes... badly. Dr. Lecter himself is not the problem. The man is perfectly mannered, and a true wordsmith. Will thinks if this were a genuine psychiatrist's visit, and Dr. Lecter a more conventional man, Will might actually gain a little piece of mind from talking with him. They're sitting there in two leather chairs across from one another talking "metaphorically" about a number of less conventional things when Will says "I just don't see the point in showing off. Why does the Ripper need the mutilate? Why waste all of that which he doesn't eat?"

And instead of smirking knowingly and giving his own "thoughts" on the Ripper's motivation, Dr. Lecter frowns, disappointment coloring his veiled emotions, and answers "Perhaps we've gone a bit too far into our metaphors. I think we ought to change the subject... Walter perhaps. How is your son doing in school? Has he made the adjustment from Louisiana to Virginia?"

Will see his mistake, but it's too late. He's insulted the Chesapeake Ripper, and for all his imagination, Will can't reach into the mind of the man sitting across from him now, a different man then had been there just a moment before. He can't imagine what Dr. Lecter will do.

Shit.

"Wally's doing well, he likes his new school about the same as his last." Will refuses to allow Dr. Lecter to know he's afraid. He plays along with the change of topic as if this was a genuine visit to his therapist. "The farm house we bought has a larger field than New Orleans did for us to run the dogs. We've got six dogs. All well trained.”

“That's good, I would've imagined he might have found it difficult to leave behind his friends and family.”

“Walter didn't really have friends, and after the fight his grandparents put up for custody to take him from me, he was more then happy to leave them behind.”

“You must love him truly as your own to keep him after the death of his mother.”

“I was there for them through the death of his biological father. I've been there for him longer now than his biological father, of course I love him.” Will says, momentarily forgetting who he's talking to, feeling like he's back in court fighting for his son.  
\---

Wally sleeps in Will’s room that night, with all the dogs present and on alert just to be safe. Will doesn't intend to fall asleep, but when he wakes early the next morning the first thing he does is make sure Walter is still breathing. The second thing his does is call his dogs from their sleeping stupor and put them back on alert to watch Walter while he searches the house, gun in hand. He searches his house quickly and finds nothing until he enters the dining room. Of course it's in the dining room.

There's a man lying wide awake on his dining table, bound from head to foot and gagged. He's screaming through the gag, begging for help, and Will wonders what Dr. Lecter means by this. He removes the gag from the man's mouth.

"God, you gotta help me! The- that man's insane! Please- he -he killed my wife, you need to call the police!" The man shouts.

"Who are you?" Will asks calmly.

"Oscar Velasquez- Come on, you gotta untie me!"

"Did he say anything to you?" Will asks, ignoring the man's pleas.

"What- No. No... Are you going to untie me?" Velasquez adds meekly.

Will doesn't answer, instead point his gun to the man's head "Think harder. He didn't say anything? Not when he murdered your wife? Not while he was mutilating the body? Not when he dragged you all the way out here and put you on my dining table?"

"What?! No I swear! Ple-please, please untie me!"

Will hears Walter's footsteps descending the stairs accompanied by the tapping of paws and the jingling of dog tags.

"What's going on, what happened- Ah c'mon it's a Saturday! And you better not kill him in the house!" Walter warns him as soon as he turns the corner into the dining room.

"What the Hell's going on!?"

Will rolls his eyes, turning back to the man on the table. "A serial killer killed your wife and delivered you to another serial killer, because I insulted him." He deadpans "Now. Last time I'm going to ask. Did the man who killed you wife say. Any. Thing. To. You?"

Velasquez cries something incoherently before managing "He- He said we were a pair... A match se-heh-et, like, like them and-and- and someone else!"

"Them who? Who else!?" Will shouts.

"I don't know! He didn't say! God, please don't kill me!"

Will sighs, "But you're part of a set. If one is dead and one isn't, it doesn't match." He clicks the safety back on and before the man can even think to feel relief, Will's hands are around his neck. He focuses on everything he knows about the Ripper as well as Doctors Bloom and Lecter as he plans his mutilation of this man.

I didn't particularly care about these people. They were a rude, ugly sort of people, and they were married. A set, that's all I need. The wife I will kill and her body will never be found. This is not my design. I kill this woman in tribute to a friend while her husband lay bound and watching. I shall honor every part of her, despite her vulgarity in life.

The husband is a gift for a friends. A gift I hope he receives wholeheartedly, and which I hope he shares with his son. I have dabbled in their form of murder, and I hope they will respond in kind. I hope that they will see that it is no waste to display your kill in the form of art. I want us to be friends, but we must look past our differences before we can move forwards.

We will be a set. Not just me and my friend, but our families. Our Family. We are too similar for me to let him get away.

"Oh come on, Dad!" Walter protests in childish exasperation.

"There's no blood Wally. You don't have to clean up anymore then if I dragged him outside first. Get started cleaning while I load him into the trunk." Will hefts the body into his arms bridal style. "We're going to try something new today. Where'd we put the steel wiring?"


	3. The Knight Finds His Apprentice

Walter never thought of himself as different, or bad or even better than anyone. He thought of himself as special of course, but that's what his mom always told him he was, so what else was he supposed to think?

When Walter was little his dad, his biological dad, not his real dad who he would meet later, was a vulgar man. He said nasty things about people in front of Walter, and for the life of him, Walter could never understand. He certainly didn't understand why his mom, who always told him when his dad wasn't around that nothing his dad said was right, stayed with such a bad person. He yelled at her and Walter all time too, and Walter was always trying to convince her they should leave.

When Walter was four he trips down the stairs. It was only a couple of stairs, but the pain he feels in his broken elbow is the worse thing he's ever felt. His mom wouldn't stop fussing over him, and even his dad seems worried- at least, he concentrated more on driving and yelling at Walter's mom, rather than hitting her for letting him fall, which Walter, in his young age, counted as a victory- as they drove to the hospital. He gets to watch a movie on his dad's tablet in the waiting room, because it's a busy night and a broken arm is the least of the staffs troubles, and he picks Matilda. This was his dad's biggest mistake, though none of them knew it at the time. For weeks after his arm broke Walter thinks about the moral of Matilda.

"If a person is bad that person has to be punished."

"What did you say Wally?" His mom asks looking up from where she's chopping lettuce for their dinner.

"Nothing," Walter says.

In Walter's defence, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.  
\---

After Walter's arm heals and he gets the cast off he decides he's going to push his dad down the stairs too, but from the top because it'll probably hurt him more from higher up. He waits until his mom isn't home one day and spends several minutes up stairs in his playroom working up the courage to call his dad from the lower floor. In the ends he just screams bloody murder almost against his own will, and kicks his dad in his leg when he's rushing up the stairs, just a bit too early, when his dad still has a good grip on the railing.

"What the Hell Walt-" when his father doesn't fall down the stairs Walter panics and quickly shoves his hands in his father's face, which was only level with the small boy because he'd been bent over rubbing his shin. This is what has the desired effect of tipping his father backwards and sending him tumbling down the stairs at a terrible angle. As soon as he's done it though, Walter realises his dad is going to be mad when he gets up, not afraid and apologetic like he'd been picturing for weeks. Walter runs to his playroom and slams the door. Minutes tick by and Walter doesn't hear anything, so he risks opening the door, and peeking out the tiniest crack. His dad isn't out in the hall, and Walter doesn't understand.

Quietly he opens the door and a slips out. The carpet muffles his quiet steps as he walk toward the stairs. He stops at the top of the stairs where he sees his dad lying on the floor, twisted up all funny and definitely dead. Walter knows what dead looks like, he's been to a funeral once, and animal die in it road all the time. While he's never been told, he know that if you cause someone's death you have done a very bad thing. Only Walter doesn't feel like he's done a bad thing. He's more upset that his mom will be mad, or that the police might come and take him to jail. He is not upset his father is dead. He feels like he's free now, him and his mom.  
\---

Officer Will Graham is among the first on the scene, and he knows exactly what's happened when he sees the man lying at the bottom of the stairs. It’s not a complicated design.

I didn't mean to kill him. I only wanted to hurt him. He isn't a good person, and bad people need to be punished. His death was not my original design, but it’s not a bad one and it suits me just fine.

He says no such thing to anyone, instead walked back outside and tells the others that it was a simple accident like wife said over the phone, then he makes claim he wants to talk with the woman, and heads to the back of a parked ambulance where the mother and son sit, sharing a shock blanket. One look and he knows which of them did it, though he's doing remarkably well to pretend to the contrary.

He stands in front of them from a moment, letting it sink in that he knows before he says "My name's Officer Graham."

"Molly Foster." Says the woman, nerves rattling her voice "...and this is Walter."

"Hi," says the tiny voice of the little murderer.

"I know what you did Walter." Will says bluntly, he doesn't believe in sugarcoating things, even for children. The boy has the decency to look frightened.

"My son didn't-"

"Yes he did. He pushed his dad down the stair. He didn't like they way Daddy thought, or talked, or acted, and so he pushed him down the stairs to teach him a lesson." There are tears in Molly's eyes and her lip is quivering. "I also know that he told you as much Miss Foster, and that you have lied to three cops, including myself just now, about what you know of your husband's death.

"Fortunately for you," Will says before the woman can deny these things, "I think you did a very chivalrous thing, Walter. I am very proud of you."

"What?" Walter practically mouths from behind the blanket.

Will smiles sympathetically at the confused family. "Sometimes, bad people don't do bad "enough" things for the police to come, and those bad people are allowed to continue doing bad things, Walter. What do you think about that?"

"That's not... very fair?" Walter guesses.

"That's right, it's not. But you stopped your dad from doing bad things where I would've never been allowed. I am very proud, and I am not going to tell anyone anything that happened, does that sound good?"

Walter nods quickly. "Please!"

"But I need you to promise me something," he turns to Molly. "Both of you need to promise me something."

"Anything." Molly says, lip still quivering, but enough confidence in her voice for him to know she means it. He decides right then and there that these people will not get away from him.

"You only need to keep quiet. Tell and retell the story you told my partner, and I’ll back it up, if you waver from this new truth you risk us all and there will be consequence. You," He turns to Walter. "Never do this again, do you understand? You're a very good boy, you don't want to get in trouble."

Walter nods.

Will is ever present in their lives from then on. He tells Walter what to say to the other police officers when they ask him questions about his dad, and his mom, and the way they lived. Will tell his mom what to say too, and takes Walter for ice cream or to the movies, or even to his own house to play with his dog when his mom goes to the court house. She's there a lot because they think she pushes his dad down the stairs. Will assures him that his mom isn't going to get in trouble, and even though he worries, he thinks having a cop on your side must mean a lot to the other cops. A few weeks later Walter figures he’d been right because they're all leaving him and mom alone.

His dad's side of the family thinks Molly did it, says Will who has come along to the funeral at Wally’s request, that's why they're glaring. No one seems to think it was Walter. No one except Will ever did, and that's when Walter realises how easy it is to get away with murder.

Will takes Molly and Walter out for a late breakfast after the funeral.  
\---

Walter is six when his mom marries his real dad, not his biological one who he killed accidentally. His dad teaches Walter all the things his old dad never did. He teaches him just exactly why his old dad thought the way he did, and acted the way he did. He teaches him when it's appropriate and inappropriate to kill someone. He teaches Walter how you kill someone.

"You can't just pick a victim Wally, you have to have a reason, otherwise it isn't chivalrous, it's just ugly." His dad says in the garage one night like he has many times, now over the body of a lady his dad says had lots of pets that she didn't actually want to take care of. That she collected them to hurt them. Two of which, two little puppies, Will has brought home with him.

"Okay, but why bring her to our house?" Wally asks, not sure he thinks it's smart to bring evidence into your own home.

"We have to honor her." Will answers. "And all the proper tool for that are here at home."

"Honor her? But she was a bad person. She doesn't deserve honor."

"Oh, I know. We're not doing it for her Wally. We're doing it for us. We're going to use every part of her we can, and what we can't we'll find somewhere to bury. An apology to that of her that was useless even in death. We have to honor her or else, even with a reason, it's just murder." Will finds a knife and flips it in his hand so that the hilt faces his son.

"Do you want to learn how to gut someone?"

"Sure," Walter answers like Will just offered to let him help fix the boat engine the way his mom thinks they're doing.

Walter used to be scared of what his dad did, because if he’s willing to kill other people, he might kill Walter too, until Will explained that there were rules for killing people.

Firstly, you can't kill someone you know. If you did that, if you killed even just one person you knew, the police or the FBI could find out. Just look what happen your mom, Will had said.

Secondly, you can't kill someone who tries to be a good person, even if they mess up every now and again. Death is not only a punishment for bad people, but a gift to the community, so they no longer have to be weighed down by one terrible person. If you kill people who are trying to do better, you end what ever good they could've done to the community, and that's a waste.

Thirdly, you don’t kill when you're mad. If you kill when you're mad you leave evidence. You leave proof of motive. Just look at what you did to your dad, Will had said.

And lastly, you never kill children, because they were still learning the difference from right and wrong. “Just like you Wally, you're perfectly safe, it's why I helped you.”   
\---

Will spends three happy years married to Molly. His strong, independent, Molly with the protective instincts of a mother wolf. When he first met her and Walter, her determination had appealed to him and he'd thought he could change her, make her like him. He couldn't. Molly refused to acknowledge that Will was anything but a man who failed his FBI training, playing Robin Hood in the New Orleans PD for people like her and Walter. If she knew what was in the meals she cooked, or down in the garage, or whose very bones were holding their house together, she wouldn't be able to handle it. Molly simply wasn't the killer her husband and son were.

For three happy years he choses to ignore it because he still had Walter, who was a prodigy once he overcame his fear of Will. Walter, who loves watching Will work, loves seeing the skin split beneath the knife, loves carving and skinning and cooking and lying. His perfect little psychopath.

Yes, for three happy years everything is perfect for the Graham family. Then one night two men break into their house.

Will had taken them out for dinner, just for the fun of it and they'd been out for hours one Saturday night. Walter had rushed out of the car when they finally made it to their secluded little home, and ran up the steps ahead of his parents, eager to be the winner of the race only he was competing in.

Nothing caught Will’s attention at the door as he handed Walter the keys and took the leftovers from their dinner from Molly. They were smart, they'd broken in from the back.

“M’lady.” Walter said, holding the door open for his mom with a little bow. 

“Why, thank you kind Sir.” Molly smiles wide and steps inside.

The front door opens to a hallway, with the kitchen to the left near the end, the living room to the right, and a light switch for the hallway right at door. Molly, the first one in, turns on the light and is the first one into the living room.

Will’s back was to her for only a second, when he turned into the kitchen for so mundane a thing as putting the leftovers in the fridge when “Will!” she cries.

Two shots and a thud.

Wally screams.

Will reacts on instinct. He drops the food, grabs a knife from the sink and runs past his wife’s fallen body, into the darkness after a fleeing shape. The man ran around a corner and toward the stairs muttering “fuck fuck fuck!” with no reservation.

Will lunges and catches the man by his ankles halfway up the stairs. He dragged the man towards him with a grunt.

“I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!” It's teenager. A fucking kid. Fuck. He can't-

Another shape moves in the corner of Will’s vision, in the living room heading for the back door. He hears Walter yelp, then shout “Dad! There's somebody else!”

The back door slams.

“Fuck!” Will growls jamming the knife through the calf of the kid below him, and immobilizes him by ripping it down through his achilles tendon, ignoring the screams and the blood pooling down the steps. Will jerks the gun from the kids trembling hands and rushes towards the back door intent on chasing the other man down.

“Da- Dad wait!” Will turned to see Walter holding a dirty dish rag over his mom's chest, trying to apply pressure to a wound Wally already knew had proven fatal. Will’s paternal instinct wins out over his bloodlust and he takes only a short second to watch the man run past where the flood lights reached into the pitch black area of his property, watching his dogs chase after him playfully untill he disapears intl the dark, wishing to God he'd trained them not to be so trusting.

Walter doesn't look as Will returns and kneels beside him. “I don't know how t-t’ stop bleeding…” Will can hear the warbling in Wally’s voice that precedes every occasion on which Walter has cried, but he's trying not to now. Will doesn't even have to try to feel the little boy's terror that the possibility his mom really is dead.

At least it was quick, Will thinks, choosing to watch the first thief stumbles down the last steps, leaning heavily on the railing, as he wraps his arm around his son, guiding him to his feet. He can see how young he is, no older than fifteen, and Will sees now, when the boy looks him in the eyes.

My dad does this sort of thing all the time, break-ins and burglary. “Quick and easy.” He says. “In and right back out.” Mom doesn't know, and he's promised to show me the ropes. He gave me a gun and told me not to use it unless I was attached first- why did I shoot I'm a murderer I'm dead they’re going to kill me I- Where’s dad?! He didn't leave me?! I can't-

Will pulled out of the child's mine as the boy stares frantically at the back door, knowing he'll never make it.

“I know, Wally. It's okay.” Will commforts, rubbing Walter’s shoulder as he pulls him to his feet. “C’mon, get up.” Walter follows him willingly.

The would-be thief stops on the last step. Will places Wally’s hands around the gun that killed his mother, and raises his son's arms in the direction of the other boy. “You don't have to follow the rules tonight.”  
\---

Because they had to clean up the evidence of the teenager they killed that night in their house, the time of death for Molly didn't match up with the time of Will’s call to 911. Walter felt guilty and miserable when the police came to take his dad and himself for legitimate interrogations at the police station, that proved to be nothing like the simple interviews they'd done the night it happened.

It's happening again, one parent was going to take the fall for the death of another, he'd thought as he waited for an officer to come to the room they'd sat him in. It was his fault, he convinced himself as he told the officer the story he'd practice with his dad, because if he'd not gotten carried away with the gun- or, or better yet, not broken the rules at all, they would've had time to clean up.

For a week Wally had to stay with his grandparents, his biological dad’s parents up in Shreveport, Louisiana, while his real dad stayed in New Orleans to clear his name.

Walter knew the entire time he was away that his house was being torn apart top to bottom while his dad's colleagues looking for any evidence of the two men Will and Wally “claimed” had broken into the house, as well as evidence that perhaps “that weirdo, y’know... Graham” had not been having quite the happy home life he claim to his co-workers. That perhaps poor Wally was simply too scared to lose yet another parent, to admit the truth. He only prayed they didn't find the secret hatch in the boat garage, because they'd been hiding everything there for as long as he could remember.

His grandparents spent the week trying comfort him, but Walter didn't want their comfort. That's not to say he hadn't needed it, he had nightmares every night the entire miserable week, but no way in Hell was he crawling into bed with the two strangers he hadn't seen since he was three. No way was he going to talk with the two people discussing a custody battle behind his back. The only one he wanted comfort from, when he couldn't distract himself with TV or his video games, was his dad.

By the end of the week the police only manage to find a few fingerprints matching a former convict charged with several break-ins and suspected of three separate murders. As soon as Will feels it's safe, that they're not getting caught, he does two things.

First he drives the five hour journey to pick up his son, and argue with Walter's grandparents.

“Why don't you just leave the boy with us Will. Just until things are settled. We’ll bring him down for the funeral.” Walter's grandfather says five minutes after Will arrives, right after Walter had ran up to his room intent on packing his suitcase as quickly as possible.

“Because, Mr. Foster,” Will starts with no pretence of pleasanty, “quite frankly I know you only want Walter here because his reminder you of your own son. You haven't come to visit once since Tanner's death. You thought Molly was a murderer for years, and I honestly don't want my son, with people like you who plot to take him from the last stable person in his life.”

“Well I don't want my grandson in the care of an dirty, unstable cop.” Mr. Foster hissed.

Will snorts. “You can want or not want whatever you like, fight me and you’ll regret it.”

“Is that a threat?! Are you threatening me Boy?!” Mr. Foster took as step towards Will, practically puffing up his chest.

Will takes a casual step closer, bring their faces only inches apart. The beast is itching under his skin, and Will can't help but ask, “How many guns are in this house? Are they easily accessed by children? Are they loaded? How much alcohol is there? Have you driven under the influence with Walter in the car? Perhaps there's rats in the walls? A racoon in the attic?”

“What the Hell are you going on about-”

“I’m sure Walter knows the answer to all those questions. I really don't think this is healthy environment for a child, and I'm sure any court would agree, but if you’d still like to take it to court, be my guest Mr. Foster.”

Walter comes back down stairs soon after Will’s little threat, bypassing the adults and dragging his suit case straight out the door to his dad’s car. He comes back in and practically drags his dad outside, insisting he’s ready to go, it's time to go go go. Sensing his son’s mood, Will gets in the car and drives away from the small house, leaving it's two residents standing in the driveway awestruck, with out any sort of goodbye.

Walter doesn't make it five miles down the road before Will has to pull over and comfort him from the break down he’d been holding in and all week. Finally able to let go, his shoulders shake like earth quakes in Will arms.

“Hey it's okay, none of it's your fault.” Will tries to sooth Walter over his wailing.

“ye-es it iiiiisss!” Walter cries. “I should- I shouldve- known what to do!”

“Then it's all my fault too, okay, I should have been teaching you how to save lives not kill them, right?” Will's own voice goes a little warbly, as he begins to empathize with Walter. “But there's nothing you could've done for Mom, you know why?”

There's a long draw out wail that turned into a scream, muffled by Will’s shirt before Walter finally chokes out “Wh-why not!?”

“It hit her ascending aorta, you remember what that is right?” Will says, still rubbing.

“Mh-hmm…” Unfortunately he did, Walter’s lessons with Will had him up close and personal with enough human anatomy that Wally could easily identify the largest artery in the human body. The Fosters hadn't told Walter anything about his mother death except the expected idea that it had been quick, and she wouldn't have felt anything, but Walter didn't need Will to tell him any more now. The image of the hole shot through his mother chest, the feel of warm blood on his hands through the dish rag he's grabbed from the kitchen, were still burned into his brain.

The bullet hit her ascending aorta right above her heart, and there was no way to stop that, no tourniquet that could've been made, or pressure on the wound could've have done any better. The only comforting fact Walter could think was that she had, at least, died quickly.

And I was there, she's didn't have to be alone...

When Walter finishes crying, enough he feels he can pull away from his dad, Will starts the car again. And they stay silent for a long time.

“They identified the father and son from some fingerprints.” Will says

“Have they found the dad yet?” Walter asks bitterly, eager for justice.

“No, but we don't want them too. The father and son are both wanted, they find him, he says he left his son with us, where we said he left with his dad.”

Walter doesnt answer, just breathes raggedly, leaning his head against the window, trying not to cry in frustration.

“Besides where's the fun in court cases.” Will goes on. “Wouldn't you rather take your justice yourself?”

“Yeah…”

“Good, because he’s in the trunk.” Walter can hear the smile in his dad's voice. He doesn't feel quite as excited as he might have before, about the prospect of taking a life, and his dad knows it.

But Will also knows who his son is, and he knows when the man in the trunk is dead, likely a little too quickly for Walter’s liking because he'll be too excited for his revenge, that Walter will find himself again. He'll come away with a new respect for the laws of life and death, learning what Will could never actually teach him, that Walter will only ever be in so much control of life and death. That sometime the Grim Reaper will snatched the strings of fate from the child's hands, but that Walter must always take every chance to snatch them back when the Reaper turns away.

Still the next thing, the second thing, Will does after disposing of, ironically, William and Caster Marcel, is to send in his resume for a teaching position at the Academy in Quantico. It's time to leave Louisiana, and show Walter how the real world serial killers play.


	4. The Heir Apparent Comes of Age

Hannibal teaches Alana many things. She learns quickly to mimic his surgical precision of removing organs, she learns to use blunt force to her advantage, she learns that it's quite fun to kill on her own with the knowledge that Hannibal is with Jack, to whom she had introduced for the sole purpose of securing his innocence of any crimes in Jack's mind. She learned that killing the rude is one of the most satisfying things she's ever done.

Mischa has just turned two and is already taking wholeheartedly after her father, in both looks and mind when she wonders quietly to Hannibal at one of their family dinner how they're going to tell her, because they really should one day.

Hannibal turns to Mischa in response, their daughter still in a highchair at Hannibal's pristine dining table. "Mylima Mischa, do you know what you're eating?" 

"Spaghetti, Tėti?" Mischa looks at her dinner now as if it might not be spaghetti. Really it's not, it's a much finer dish then spaghetti, but that's hardly the point, so Hannibal doesn't make to correct her on that.

"And do you know what's in the spaghetti?" Hannibal twirls a bit of his own pasta on his fork and takes a bite.

"Nuh-uh." She shakes her head, ash-blonde curls sticking to the sauce on her face as they've fall from her ponytail.

"People." Hannibal tells his daughter.

"Hannibal! I said one day!" Alana hisses.

"Wait, Sweet Alana." He says, then turns back to their daughter.

"People are in my spaghetti?" 

“Mh-hm," he nods. "Just like there is chickens in your chicken-nuggets and cow in your burgers, and pig in your breakfast sausages. There are people in the spaghetti tonight."

Alana watches across the table with her breath held as Michelle looks down at her bowl with scrutiny. "Are there allowed to be people in the spaghetti?"

"Mamytė and me don't mind." Hannibal smile the way he only does for Mischa. "But some people might get mad and take you way, send Mamytė and me to prison, so you must promise not tell anyone, Michelle. It has to be a secret."

Even at two years old, Michelle know her full name means the most serious of business is being discussed. She nodded quickly, a look of absolute conviction on her face. "I won't tell there's people in my spaghetti, Tėti."

"Good girl." He leans forward to kiss the top of her head.

"Just like that?" Alana asks, terrified now that she'll go out and Mischa will ask for people in the food.

"Just like that. All will be well, Mischa understands quite a lot more than you think."  
\--

Most of the food is people, this is something Mischa had known for awhile. On some level she knows this is a bad thing, but it's not something she is going to get in trouble for. Her Tėti tells her that she mustn't tell others, because most of the world views cannibalism as wrong. He tell her that this is a backwards sort of thinking, because this is what evolution has equipped them to do, but most people would have you believe that is was cannibalism that was the step backwards. It is therefor a private family matter, he says, that they practice the consumption of their fellow man, that they will not bother others with, so they may be left alone to evolve beyond them in peace.

Mischa spends the weekends with her Tėti, and he often has a man named Mr. Crawford over for dinner. It is on one such Saturday night, when Mischa is two, ("three next month Tėti, I'm not a baby!") and helping Hannibal prepare dinner for Mr. Crawford, that her father shows her the human organs they'll be having for dinner in all their raw, undamaged glory for the first time.

"These are the lungs of a woman I met three years ago in New York City.” Hannibal says to Mischa, speaking Lithuanian as the two do when they are alone. “We happened to attend the same art gallery and I had the distinct displeasure of listening to her complain to her friends of her children and her husband the entire day, as if such gifts were a burden upon her." He stands next to where his daughter, in her own white button down and apron to match his own, stands on a stool in order to see the top of the counter. 

"She didn't like her family?!" Mischa asked astonished. Family was the most important thing in the world, she didn't understand how anyone could not love their family.

"No, she didn't. And this-” Hannibal pulls out another organ from the refrigerator laying it out next to the set of lungs. "Can you figure out what this is?"

"Um... is it the… kid-a-ney." his daughter says finishing in english, smiling her best “I know I’m wrong" smile.

“No, and it's called an ‘inkstų’” Hannibal smiles back at her. “It's her stomach.‘Skrandis’”

"Oooohhhhh." Mischa say, studying the squishy... shape lying in front of her. "Can I touch it?"

“Yes, of course, just be gentle Beloved, wouldn't want to ruin the meat." Her Tėti says.

She pokes it cautiously at first.

"Gently Michelle." Hannibal warns as the little digit of her star-shaped hand starts to presses too hard.

"But it's so squishy Tėti!" She giggles.

"But if you ruin that tummy, I'll have to eat yours." Hannibal says in false concern. 

"No! You can't!" Mischa makes to jump off her stool, but Hannibal catches her and holds her in both arms. He brings her little stomach up to his face, and makes like he's going to eat her stomach right then until he's got her in a fit of giggles, kicking in his arms until he's forced to put her down.

Smiling, he sets her down and kisses her forehead. "There is no force on earth that could ever make me eat you Beloved Mischa, I promise. I love you far too much.”

“I love you too Tėti!”  
\--

For Michelle's third birthday she has a party at her Mamytė’s house with all her friends from daycare. It's Tinkerbell themed and Alana and Hannibal have decorated the whole backyard in purple and green everything and even hung a piñata with all of Tinkerbell’s friends on it up in the tree. There's a bounce house, and an actress they hired will show up later and pretend to be Tinkerbell for a little while.

Presents are opened after they eat cake, which Hannibal make himself of course, and which was serves still warm and covered in fairy shaped cake toppers. Her best friend Anna gets Mischa an Ever After High doll, and her friend Chase gets her a gift card to Build-A-Bear Workshop, and a couple of outfits for her bear whenever she goes. She thanks all her friends and poses for pictures for her Mamytė. During the day, because they have to present themselves as normal her Tėti gets Michelle a set of art supplies, of paper and markers, pens and pencils of all colors, and her Mamytė brings out two parakeets in a cage, from the house where she'd been hiding them.

All in all it's a good day for everyone, but Michelle couldn't be happier when all her guest are gone and night falls, because that's when her Tėti shows her The Rolodex. He'd told her about it many times, that it held the names of the bad people that they ate, and it was how they chose their victims. He reassured her that everyone in there was definitely a bad person because they had been bad in front of her Mamytė and Tėti, he reassures her they do not eat the polite. Hannibal reads through several names, telling her who, either himself or her Mamytė, had added it to The Rolodex, and why they'd thought that person deserved such a fate. He tells her to pick one, and that Mamytė will make her a masterpiece for her birthday, something she can see on the news, and read about on Tattlecrime.

Michelle gleefully picks a man Tėti had added, who he tells her had been screaming at his children in a park quite too abusively for Tėti's liking, especially in front of Michelle, even if she was too young to understand at the time. She watches him pluck the business card out from its space in The Rolodex, and hand it to Mamytė sitting on her other side.

"Why this one?" Mamytė ask, and Michelle knows it's not a criticism.

"You should never abuse family, especially your kids in a park. It's a park. You're supposed to have fun, you can't be mad at your kids for wanting to stay."

"Those are very good reasons Michelle, I am so proud of you." Alana says as she stands from the couch and take the suitcase containing a plastic Murder Suit (as Michelle called it) and several surgical tools which Hannibal had brought over earlier that morning.  
\---

Mischa is spending a rainy Saturday at Hannibal’s house when she finally has to meet Will. She remembered Walter a little bit from for the dinner party two and a half months back, and she remembers him being shy and not wanting to play much. She doesn't remember Mr. Graham, and quite frankly she would never like to have to, she didn't care if her parents are together with him.

Mischa is very open minded, and quick to catch onto things, but funnily enough her parents had to explain the concept of polyamory to her.

“But how can you love him if you still love each other?” Michelle had said, legs swinging anxiously under her from where she's seated in a tall stool at the Kitchen Island where they always have important family meetings. “If you spend too much time loving him you might not love each other as much, and then our family will get all messed UP.”

“That won't happen Michelle.” Alana had told her. “Will will spend just as much time with either of us as he will with both of us, he going to make our family stronger, not tear it apart.”

Michelle highly doubt that. “But I saw on a TV show once, that a lady had two boyfriend and they all got in a fight over it!” she smacks her hands on the island for emphasis.

“Don’t bang your hands, and what show? Which channel was it on Michelle?” Hannibal asks.

“I don't know.” she shrugs, and any other parents might believe her lie with it perfect mix of “Why are you mad” and “Why does is matter” tones, but not her parents.

“Yes you do, all the adult channels are locked in both houses Michelle, did you get the key code or did one of us leave it on the wrong channel?” Alana said.

Recognizing she's been caught in her lie, Michelle bales quickly, hoping not to get in trouble. “You left it on MTV. There was a lady and she had two boyfriend's and she said not to tell because if one found out they'd KILL EACH OTHER. And then they found out and they fought! I don't want you both to die!”

“Michelle, that isn't polyamory, that is dishonest cheating in a monogamous relationship.” Hannibal says. “Those two men likely thought they were the only ones with that woman, she lied to them. Will knows we are together and Mamytė knows I will be with Will and I will know she will be with him.”

“So it's bad because they lied?”

“Exactly.” Mamytė smiles.

“But we lie to people all the time.” Michelle scowls.

“But not to each other. Not to those we love, only to outsiders. There will be no lies between Mamytė and Will and I.” Hannibal tells her.

Alana sees a defeated little pout starting to show on her daughter's face and so she says “I promise you'll like Will and Wally, they caught those fish we ate the other night, you liked those. Maybe Will can teach you how to fish too.”

“Nnnno. I won't.” Michelle dropped her head on the island with a small thwack, sighing oh so dramatically.

That had been three weeks ago, and Mischa's standing at her clavichord now, next to Tėti’s harpsichord, setting her dolls up perfectly so that the people of the Kingdom of Clavichord can properly negotiate their terms of surrender to the Holy Harpsicorian Empire, when she hears the doorbell ring. They're here. And they will be all afternoon, the only upside in this is that they will be staying for dinner. Serves them right for invading her family space.

She leaves her toys and greets them dutifully and respectfully with smiles and handshakes like she’s been taught, and as soon as she can she retreats back to her clavichord. She'd go to her room if it were allowed, but with guest in the house she has to stay on the ground floor.

Wally is just as she remembers. Big and quiet, and as interested in the situation as she is, which is to say not at all. Mr. Graham and Wally are dressed nicely, but not properly for a dinner party. Mr. Graham's hair is too long and not at all styled like it's supposed to be and he hasn't shaved either. He reminds Mischa, standing next to her tėti in his nice grey three piece, like… like the Tramp in Lady and the Tramp. 

She's left alone long enough to finishes playing Mozart’s Turkish March on her Clavichord for her toys before she is interrupted by Walter standing awkwardly halfway between the door and where she sits near the window.

“Is that a piano?” he asks after a beat of silence.

“No. It's a clavichord, the oldest relative of a piano. Not a piano.” She says.

“I used to be able to play the piano. A little. My mom wanted me to.” Walter says quietly.

“Where’s your mom anyway.” Mischa says after a second, unable to not talk to someone who is talking to her. “Tėti and Mamytė only talked about your dad.”

“She's dead.” Walter answers.

“How?”

“Murdered.” He looks down at his feet, decidedly… distant. “They haven't found who did it.”

“Oh… Wanna play with me?” she hopes off her bench and shows him her two kingdoms.

When he goes to grab the Prince on the Harpsichordian side of the standoff Mischa stops him.

“No no no, I'm Prince Caleb,” she grabs the leader of the Harpsichordians from Walter “you can be on the Clavichordian’s side.”

After that Mischa shows Walter how her kingdoms, both of which had been moved to the Harpsichord for their treaty negotiation so Mischa could open her clavichord, work, they play quietly for the afternoon. Walter plays with the Clavichordian’s, once Mischa agrees to let Walter play King Mathew instead of the Princess Annalise who was in charge of the Clavichordian’s, as long as Walter does all the writing on some paper for the rules of the treaty.

When she finds out at dinner that Mr. Graham brought the meat she is instantly disappoints because that means it isn't people, and if it isn't people he isn't being punished for being here.

Tėti is at the head of the table and Mischa is sitting to his right between he and Mamytė and right across from Mr. Graham. Her parents are talking animatedly with Mr. Graham about working in psychiatric fields when her mom notices she isn't eating.

“I want to eat something else.” Mischa says.

“Really? Your Tėtis said you would like this.” Will answers with a hint of a smile. Hannibal and Alana had explained that Mischa was upset at the idea of her parents being with someone else. They agreed it was probably the same reason Walter didn't have have many friends back home, she didn't want to invite people who would be against her family’s ideals into her inner circle. Alana had come up with the idea, then, of letting Will tell her, to give him something positive to tell her the first time they met.

“Perhaps you could tell her the story behind tonight's meat selection, she always enjoys that.” Hannibal prompts, and Mischa’s brow furrows as she glances at him skeptically.

“Well, he was, as they tend to be with me, an animal abuser Michelle.” Will says, launching into a story about a man involved in organized dog fighting, and how he'd stalked the man because he wouldn't be the sort to have a business card. He tells her in detail about stalking the man with Wally the night before and how he'd had to take one of the less aggressive dogs of course before calling in an anonymous tip for the police.

Mouth gaping and eyes wide Mischa whispers “You're a cannibal too?”

Will smiles and nods, and Michelle never can find another reason not to like Will.  
\---

It suffices to say Michelle Amelia Leanne Lecter has always been a part of her family, but that does not mean there was not a defining moment for her, when she joined her family truly.

Michelle's defining moment, the one that would determine who she was, both within her family, and within society, for the rest of her life comes six months after her third birthday when she is playing in the forest in the middle of the night with her new brother, Walter. Her parents, her Mamytė, Tėti, and her new Daddy, have brought them all out here because their hunt was camping in these woods this weekend, and they all agreed Mischa would need the utmost privacy for her first kill.

The game she and Wally are playing is one she's never played before, but which Wally is an expert at. It's too dark to see anything, but they know where they're going, their parents and their pet dogs are farther behind anyway, and Mischa's never been afraid of the dark. She and Walter and going to kill tonight, but first they're going to play with their food, something neither is allowed to do at the dinner table.

Wally takes her hand when they spot the light of a campfire in the distance. "C'mon, run." He says before pulling her forward towards their destination. They run and run until they reach the campsite of three middle-aged men and a women sitting around a campfire, half drunk on cheap beer.

The first man to react only manages to slurs out, "Wah the Hell're you kids doing out here-" before Walter's crying.

"Please mister! You- you have to help us! We got lost and-and-" He starts cry. Mischa takes this as her cue to start crying as well, only she does it a little louder, and no tears fall from her eyes. The woman, Angelina Tėti had told them, gets up from the ground and stumbles over to them.

"Hey, you don'eeda cry, okay, who were y’out here with? We'll help you find thum." Her breath is wreaking in Mischa’s faces, but her concern for these two children in front of her is very real. Michelle isn't fooled, she knows you do not have to be a totally bad person in every situation to be a bad person. She knows that if you have done something bad enough to land in The Rolodex, you deserved to be there. The fact that her family found these people out in the woods hunting when it very clearly wasn't hunting season was proof enough of that.

"We were wi-ith Mommy and dad-daddy." She cries her practiced lie. "There was a- was a animal, a really, really big animal-" she starts up her crying again.

"Hey s'all right. We'll find yur Mommy and Daddy shweetheart," Angelina turns to her brother "Hey Paul, try'n call the rangers' office, see if they can come'n go'n find the kids parents."

Angelina takes the children from the edge of the camp site and sits them next to a man named Collin Haight while she and Paul try to phone the rangers' office. This is a pointless endeavor Michelle thinks, as she screwed a marshmallow Collin has given her on a stick, because her Daddy is somewhere nearby with a device that scrambles phone signals. They're in a dead zone.

Looking over at Wally she knows he thinks this is all as fun as she does. She eats two burnt marshmallows and one actual s'more before Angelina and Paul Moore give up for the moment and join them back at the fireside.

"So what're yer names anyway?" Asks the first man who spoke when they'd run in from the woods, Brian Epstein, if Michelle remembers.

"I'm Walter, and this is my sister Michelle." Walter answers after swallowing a large bite of s'more. It's rude to talk with your mouth full after all.

"Hm, and what are you kids and your family doing out here anyway?" Asks Collin.

"We’re hunting. Our Tėti says it's a lot easier when there's less people around." Michelle answers. "Can I have any juice?"

"Tee-tee?" Paul asks, screwing up his face in a rude criticized as he muddled the word on his uncultured tongue.

Angelina passes her a water with an apology that that was all they had if she didn't want soda and Walter snaps at Paul, "It's Lithuanian for dad."

"Oh, well excuse me for not knowing that."

It takes effort for Michelle not to pull out her revolver right there. To end these people like she knows she can. This is her shot to prove herself as part of the family and she isn't going to mess this up, it's also the first time she's ever hung out with Wally by herself, and she doesn't want to seem like a bad hunter. She's going to get everything from these people that she can. "What are you doing out here?" She asks instead.

"We're hunting too, your dad's got the right idea about doing it in the off season."

"Cool, what kinda guns you got?" Walter asks. And then Michelle realizes that these adults are too drunk to wonder why she and her brother aren’t crying anymore. What a bunch of stupid idiots.

They spend a while with the group of four, and learn that two of their phone died hours ago, and that the other phones aren't getting any signal. They learn that between them they have six guns, five of which are in their tents, only Brian has his with him. They learn that adults can get completely drunk off cheap beer very quickly. Even with children present. It's the most disgusting thing Michelle has ever seen.

Collin and Paul pass out in front of the fire around three in the morning and Brian stumbles halfway to his tent before he trips on a stick and decide the ground is the best place to sleep. Wally gives Michelle a look that just begs her call the kill.

If Michelle hadn't slept the day way in preparation, she would be tired by now, and likely ready to give in too, but as it was she only mouths "Wait."

Angelina is looking up at the night sky, eyes probably too unfocused to actually see anything when she says "y'two c'n take my tent. If you wanna..." Michelle decides this is a good enough time as any, and she motions for Walter to follow as she rises from the ground.

"Get the guns out of the other tents, and find if they have some rope." She whispers, headed for Angelina's tent. Angelina doesn't notice them splitting up.

The four adults remain completely unconscious as the two little killers move silently around their campsite, scavenging for trinkets and anything useful with gloved little hands. When they find a dead Wolf hanging from a tree, behind one of the the tents, clearly shot by one of these people, Michelle understands just what her mamytė meant when she said inspiration only strikes when you get there, that the murder you can plan, but art only happens when it wants.

"Can you cut that down, or do you want me to call Daddy?" She asks Walter, because the branch is rather high and she doesn't know if Walter's any good at climbing trees.

"I can do it.” Walter says, somewhat offended. “What do you want me to do with it?" He pull a hunting knife out of his pocket.

"I dunno yet, but I need it."

They have no trouble tying Angelina, Paul, and Collin to the chairs they'd passed out in, but Brian is laying in the middle of nothing and while they could call their parents to dragged his body into a chair for them, they both know they need to learn improvisation. They play with the smaller handguns they'd found for a while, barely an hour, racing to see who could take them apart and piece them back together the fastest, waiting for dawn to break so that their victims will have less alcohol in their systems when they wake up. It wouldn't be any fun if they were too inebriated to figure out what was happening.

Michelle and Walter are both starting to tire by dawn, but the prospect of finishing off these disgraceful people is enough to stop any complaining. Michelle rises once she's re-assembled her new gun, the one she found in Paul's tent, and walked with Wally over to Brian's soon to be corpes. They each press the barrel of their guns into the back of Brian's knees and pull the triggers. He won't be going anywhere now.

The three adults bound by the dead fire wake in a panic to the sound of gunshots and the screams of their friend, and it's the most hilarious thing Michelle has ever seen.

"What the fuck?!" Colin shouts "Hey! What are you two doing with those?! What have you done?!"

"Brian! Are you okay man!?" Paul screams.

"No!" is all Brian can manage between his panicked wailing.

"Hey!" Angelina snaps at the children.

"What!?" Walter snaps back, unphased, but amused.

"What in the Hell do you to think you're doing!?"

"We're hunting with our family. We told you that last night." Michelle answers. The look of horrid realization on the three adults faces is a priceless experience Michelle will never forget. Their eyes are wide, one of the men’s mouth is open like he’s trying to say something but only shuddered gasps come out, it's great. Then the other adults start shouting, both screaming for help, and just plan screaming. Brian is sobbing quietly at Michelle's feet. This is annoying.

"Why are you shouting?!" Walter asks. "There's no one out here but you guys, us, and our parents. That's why you're out here, remember? Because it's easier to hunt during the off season." None of the adults say anything, but they look so scared.

"Anyway," Michelle says, walking past Walter over to Angelina, stepping on Brian's legs on the way, just to hear him scream. "This is my first time hunting, so I get to decide what happens, and I decided I wanted to share that experience with my kill. So here's the deal-"

"You can't kill people you little shit! That's illegal! That's murder!" Interrupts Colin.

"It's illegal to hunt here when it's not hunting season, and it's not just murder if you do it for a reason, and you honor the body." Says Walter.

"Yup!" Michelle smiles at the adults. "So here's the deal. I'm gonna kill all four of you. But. But but but but buuuuuut. One of you can have your body found. One of your families gets a real funeral. One of you gets to leave a note to say goodbye. The four of you get to decide who that is. The other three, your bodies will be used up like the all the rest. And they'll never find any evidence."

"You can't do this! What the Hell is wrong with you little girl!" Screams Collin again.

Michelle doesn’t answer, instead Walter says, "You have five minutes. After that my sister's gonna pull out her revolver and play Russian Roulette on your heads, only there’s only one empty chamber. Last one standing, you die too, but your body gets found." Never mind there would still be enough bullets to take them all out.

The adults trade between shouting at and begging the children to let them go for a few minutes more before Mischa gets fed up pulls out her revolver. "JUST PICK ONE!" She screams when there five minutes are up.

"Me! God, I pick me!" Shouts Paul, wrist raw from trying to escape his bounds, and tears running down his snotty face.

"You can't pick yourself! But-uggghhh!" Michelle growls in irritation, "But now no one can pick you! You're so selfish!" She walks up to him and point the revolver to his head. This is it. She's been so excited about doing this for so long now, her stomach's been in knots all night, but this is it. She looks the man in the eyes, she's still shorter than him, even though he's sitting, but she's never felt bigger than she does when she pulls the trigger and blows out his brains. The blood hits Michelle in the face, and she doesn't know what to do for a minute. She's part of the family now. Officially. But it doesn't feel quite right. She opens her hand and the gun falls into the lap of the dead man. She turns to one of the tents, intent on finding a better weapon.

"Oh my God! Oh my god what the Hell!" Collin is screaming.

"What are you doing?" Walter asks, ignoring them.

"Getting that hatchet we saw earlier, the gun didn't feel right." Michelle comes back with a rather large hatchet, and promptly whacks Collin in the shins with the dull side, several times. "You're!" Whack "All!" Whack "So!" Whack "Stupid!" Whack whack whack!

Collin screams and screams until she stops, and then all he can do he cry. Michelle feels so exhilarated, so giddy, knowing she’d broken his legs.

"You!" She turns to Angelina. "Pick one! Brian or Collin, who get a funeral?!" She holds the hatchet up over her shoulder, like a player at bat ready to hit a homerun. She can't stop.

"I don't- Br-Brian! I pick Brian!" The woman cries.

"Why?!" Michelle cries, faking like she's going to swing, just to watch Angelina flinch. 

"Because- because he's got a family?! I don't know!" She cries. Michelle's stance laxes just a fraction. A manic little bubble of laughter escapes her throat.

"That's a good answer, Miss Angelina, I am so proud of you." She smiles, raising the hatchet, blade right-ways over her head. "You're going to die now, because this is what evolution has equipped me to do, this is my Becoming, and I thank you for your sacrifice."

Michelle swings. She doesn't stop swinging for a very long time. She kills all three of them, and she barely remembers it. Mischa's three and a half years old and she isn't scared. All she knows in those blissful moments of her Becoming is death. The sounds of screaming, of ragged breath. The thwack thwack thwack of metal cutting into flesh. The color red is everywhere.

Once they're all dead, many times over, she finally takes in her surroundings as Ground Zero of a brutal quadruple homicide, and the only thing she can think is oh, now Brian can't write a note. "Oops..."

Mischa finds that her parents have emergers with the dogs from wherever they'd been hiding all night. Their expressions are unreadable, but her mamytė is the first to come to her, picking her up and hugging her tight.

“That was amazing Mischa.” Alana whispers and Mischa rests her head on her Mom's shoulder. “Are you already baby?”

“I’m tired Mamytė." She watched Walter walk towards them, with their tėti and their dad.

“Tell us your design Michelle. We’ll make it happen while you take a nap.” Her dad says, smiling at her.


	5. The Golden Age of the Ripper's Reign

Hannibal and his Family have not kill in the fashion of the Ripper for just over two years. This is not the desired design of any of them, not even Will and Walter who have come to appreciate the finer arts of murder, but this is the way it's had to be. Hannibal and Will have made a bet, you see, and an absence of the Chesapeake Ripper correlating with the arrival of their friend Dr. Chilton's newest "I think he's the Ripper" patient, Abel Gideon, is a necessary first play in Hannibal winning. Or Will winning. It really depends who you ask.

See, Hannibal believes that he can get Will arrested and convicted of serial killing and then get him cleared of all charges. Will believes Hannibal, with the help of he and Alana, could easily do this, no questions. Only Will thinks they'll have to fall back on a contingency plan, and Hannibal believes he can make whatever plan he has (and he hasn't told any of them what it is) work perfectly. It'll be a great game for the whole family, they only need Hannibal to tell them when to start.

In the meantime they hunt in the shadows, dawning Murder Suits, as the children have permanently dubbed them, and hauling the kills back to one of their three houses, all of which have been well equipped with hidden rooms, so that no one house would have to hold all the evidence of their crimes, and so that if one comes under investigation they have somewhere to stash their share of the evidence.

They are not killing like the Ripper as far as the public knows, but that does not mean Hannibal's family is not learning how to do it. On every body they drag home, each member of the his family is given the opportunity to remove an organ each, saw an appendage in half with a bandsaw, as well as many other things. Well, most of the bodies. Some bodies were used for Will to teach the family his own methods, such as gutting or where exactly to shoot your victim for which sorts of effects, and from what distance which area worked best. Perhaps most oddly though, Will also teaches Walter and Mischa exactly how to save someone from every way they can kill them, and few more ways come from Hannibal.

Alana doesn't have much she can teach them post-mortem but she does teaches the children how to manipulate and fool their victims during capture.

Not a body goes to waste. What they can't eat, the dogs eat, what the dogs don't eat, fertilizes the plants in their vegetable and fruit gardens. They would love to do things with the hair and the bones, but those would leave evidence in their houses that won't decompose, and so such things are disposed of as far from their homes as possible. None of it has yet to be found.

Will and Walter used to honor more of the bodied then they do now of course. Where their old house in New Orleans had been, and honestly still was if anyone really cared to propery check, an orgy of incriminating evidence, one of the many compromises the Grahams and and the Lecters had had to make when their family’s merged was that no frivolous evidence was left laying about.

Hannibal himself gives up his dinner parties, trading in the satisfaction for watching unsuspecting victims consume human flesh, for teaching Wally and Mischa how to cook, and for having Darling Will and Sweet Alana sat on either side of him in any one of their dining rooms.

“Hannibal, really, you can't keep antagonizing that poor man, he’s come to you for help, and you know he’s not useful for anything.” Alana reprimands Hannibal as they sit at Will’s round dining table, eating a dinner of the wild turkey Walter had killed earlier that day.

“He is not in the long run, you're right. My own psychiatrist on the other hand, she is women well worth playing with. I’m curious what will happen if I induce seizures in Neal Frank, and increase his paranoia before recommending a transfer to Ms. Du Maurier.”

“What’s a seizure?” Mischa ask from next to her mamytė, taking a bite of brussel sprouts. 

“It’s when the electrical signals in your brain misfire, it usually causes convulsions and unconsciousness.” Alana answers.

“They look like this Mischa,” Will say, rolling his eyes back and starting to fake convulsions right there and the dining table. He keeps it up long enough to get the children laughing.

“How do you induce seizures Tėtis?” Walter asks 

“There are a few ways, but I am using a concoction of injected medications, and phototherapy."

"Which means?” Walter raises and eyebrow.

“Drugs and rapidly flashing lights.” Will answers, then turns to Hannibal before he can be corrected. "We haven't talked about it in almost a month but I have to ask, when are we starting? All the pieces are in place, Dr. Chilton thinks he's got the Ripper, Abel Gideon has no doubt been psychically driven into thinking he's the Ripper. Wally and Mischa start school together next month. And I'm the topic of conversation in the psychiatric community. I'm beginning to think you don't want me to get arrested because you don't think you can get me out." Will smirks, raising an eyebrow at Hannibal as he rest his chin on his hands.

"In the game of chess, the white pieces traditionally go first." Hannibal answers. "We may have brought the pieces to the board, but we cannot start the game. We must let the FBI think our positions are of their own design, or else my plan may not work."

"We're the Trojan Horse outside the city of Troy, then?" Will clarifies. "We can't open the horse until they move it within their walls?"

"Feels more like they've brought the Horse within their walls, and we're just waiting until they stop partying a go to sleep." Walter says glumly. He's been very excited to see his parents manipulate so many people at once ever since the dinner that had spun this crazy idea.

"That metaphor would require the FBI to think the Ripper has been captured, or surrendered. Only Dr. Chilton is of that option, Dear Wally." Hannibal says.

"But then Dad's metaphor about us being the Trojan Horse outside the walls would require the FBI to think the Ripper was surrendering too. Mr. Crawford doesn't even know his enemy is preparing for battle right outside their walls." Mischa interjects.

"We're not a Trojan Horse then," Alana agrees, placing another slice of turkey on her plate. "We are... Brutus to their Julius Caesar?"

"And we are merely waiting for our Ides of March." Hannibal nods, with a smirk.

“Oh don't smirk at me you preten-.” Alana stops herself with a sigh, “I’m only helping Walter with the metaphor, I am not participating in this conversation because I approve of it.”

It is well known between the five of them that Alana does not want Will behind bars for any length of time because whether or not Walter knows it is real, and whether or not it's permanent, to the students and teachers at Wally’s school it will be very real that his father is in jail. Children will say things to Walter because they are children, and teachers will talk about Walter in the staff room and watch him out of the corner of their eyes just waiting for him to show the sign no one caught with his father. Walter will act just the same and they'll see nothing, but he shouldn't have to go through the scrutiny all the same. Worst of all though, whether it's permanent or not, Wally will be getting Window Visits with Will, and Alana will never approve of that, especially when both men know how she feels and have chosen to do it anyway. All she can do now is go along with it and help however they need.

“Michelle has a request by the way, she asked me earlier, but I said we had to talk to both of you.” Alana says, changing the topic so they can return to their pleasant family evening.

“I want to cut my hair!” Mischa says, voice squealing in excitement, clasping her hands together and playing her best pout on her lips. “Please Tėti, please Daddy!”

“I told her I didn't care, but it's a big decision, she wants to cut it like a boys.” Alana says.

“Why do you wanna cut it like a boy?” Walter asks.

“Because now it's too long. And it hurts to brush it and I hate when it's in a bun because Tėti does it soooo tight. And no boys I know have long hair but Mrs. Fitz, the music teacher has short-short hair and pleeaasssseee can I cut it?”

“Do you feel like a boy Mylima?” Hannibal asks in lieu of an answer.

Mischa’s faces falls a little, having hope she could get what she wanted without elaborating so much. “... Only sometimes… Just a little… I feel like a girl too though. Or neither. It both- I just want short hair!”

“Well I have no problem with it.”

Mischa’s posture relaxes, because if Tėti says yes, she can get anything she wants.  
\---

The family is gathered in Hannibal's basement for the first time in weeks. Alana and Will are with Mischa, her newly cut hair, though a few inches longer, is combed in a style similar to Hannibal’s and as they pick out the different cuts of meat they'd just collected from the their latest victim to split among their three homes, she no longer has to pause to push her banger out of her face. Walter is sitting on the surgical table that he and Hannibal have just finished cleaning when he turns to his son. Hannibal watches Walter as he sits there, shoulders haunches and legs swinging as he focuses on the ancient Nintendo DS in his hands, taking a well deserved rest for the moment.

When Hannibal had learned he was to be a father, he had sworn to himself that night, while he held Alana close for the last time, that his child would have the world at their feet if they so much as mentioned the idea. Several times throughout Alana's pregnancy he'd toyed with the notion of giving up the Ripper, for the safety of his little girl, and every time he'd had Alana over for dinner instead. When he'd held Michelle in his arms for the first time in the hospital, he'd known his fate was hers, and her alone. He'd never even considered another child would come to do the same. Certainly Alana would not indulge such a fantasy, and it would not be fair to Mischa a sibling with a parent that would not love her all the same.

Then his Darling Will had come waltzing in with Walter, cover in blood already, and not afraid of more. Nothing could've been more perfect. Hannibal had brought them all together, and now all four of his family members held as many of his heartstrings as they could hold, and even then Hannibal would willingly give more if only he could. Especially for his children. Especially for Dear Wally who needed to learn to socialize with others, even when he felt it wasn't necessary.

“Might I speak with you a moment, Walter?” Hannibal says to the boy, dragging him away from his game.

“Sure- oh, sorry, I didn't mean to sit on the table.” Walter says hopping off the surgical table quickly.

“It fine now, the table has been cleaned, no evidence can follow you home. Come.” Hannibal leads Walter up stairs back into the house.

“So what’s up Tėtis?” Walter asks when he and Hannibal are seated in the living room.

“I simply wanted to give you a gift.” Hannibal reaches to the table where a little box is wrapped in black paper and topped with a blue bow. Walter opens the the present quickly and his eyes light up immediately.

“No way!” Walter shouts, beaming at his brand new Playstation Vita. He can't stop smiling.“What’s this for Tėtis?!"

“The school year is starting soon, I simply thought you'd like a gift.” Hannibal's smiles, taking the wrapping paper from the couch and setting it on the table to be thrown out later.

“Mischa is going to be so jealous.” Walter says, starting to open the box.

“Not entirely.” Hannibal says, nodding to the to the box on the table wrapped in green paper.

“Oh… Wait, why give me mine separately then?” Walter asks, setting the half opened box in his lap. He sees the trap he's walked into.

“Clever as your father you are. I have a bit of a favor to ask you, Wally.” Hannibal says, becoming all business.

“What kinda favor?” Walter is skeptical now. Anytime Tėtis need a favore, it usually something Walter doesn't like. Like killing with surgical tools in place of hunting knifes, which is always a pain for him.

“Mischa intends to entire the choir when school starts. I was hoping to persuade you to join with her, though I know you wouldn’t like it.” Hannibal also knows Walter would agree without any preceding gifts, it's only that Hannibal enjoys spoiling his children, and Wally deserved something nice in exchange for his preferred unsociability.

“Why?” Walter questions, eyes downcast.

“Partially so she will not be alone. Partially so you will not be alone.” 

“But I like being alone, Tėtis.” Walter says in a tone that suggested to Hannibal Walter doesn't think he will understand. “People are just… They don't get the way I am."

"‘People’ will never just ‘get the way you are’ Walter, ‘people’ were never meant to. What do I say about love Walter?”

“That no one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them.” Walter recited with ease.

“Precisely, but those meant to love you will never find you if hid from them." 

"I don't think I want them to find me… Here." Walter makes to get the PSP back.

"Gifts are gifts Dear Wally, you may keep this whether you join the choir or not." Hannibal stops him then asks, "Is it that you do not want to interact with others because there will be too many false acquaintances before you find genuine friendship, or is it that you think yourself incapable of it despite a desire?"

There is silence for a moment.

"Are you psychoanalyzing me?" Walter blurts out, looking up at Tėtis.

"Perhaps a bit, but I am also trying to understand my son a little better. With honest methods, the way you deserve."

"Well I don't know... I guess I just don't try..." Walter answers reluctantly. "You wouldn't be mad if I didn't make friends? I just have to put myself in the position to do so?"

"That's my boy." Hannibal flashes a smile at Walter. "Effort in the face difficulties is all a parents should ask for."

Mischa starts school that August, an expensive private school in Baltimore that Hannibal, Alana, and Will (though the other two) all pay for. It's the same school Walter, under the tutelage of Hannibal and Alana, had earned a scholarship to attend two years back, despite the considerable distance between his home address and the school's. He see Michelle outside at the end of the first day of school, and neither of them say a word to the other. They will not do so until the first day of choir practice, when they are grouped together for an activity.  
\---

Hannibal takes the children out on his own the week before Thanksgiving, to a street festival Mischa had wanted to attend with her "friend she'd met in choir", and it leaves Alana and Will to visit with one another alone.

“So how’s Wally doing in the sixth grade?” Alana asks, coming back from her kitchen and handing Will a glass of whiskey on the living room couch.

“Good actually.” He takes the offered drink greatly. “Surprisingly good. All his classes are keeping him focused, he’s actually enjoying social interaction for once, or at least learning to pretend to. He isn't putting up a fight when it comes to homework either. I don't know what his teachers are doing this year, but I wish they'd done it sooner."

Alana hums to herself “See, and we’ve got the opposite problem with Michelle. Hannibal’s already taught her how to read, and how to tell time, and a great deal of math. She’s keeping it quiet at school, but she’s absolutely bord. And of course she doesn't want to make new friends, she want to play with Anna and Chase.”

"Why aren't you letting her hang out with her friends?” Will asks

“It’s not that I’m not allowing it, it’s that her schedule for school and Choir don't match up with her friends’ in their public school.” She smiles sheepishly. “Is it bad I don’t really care? That I’m glad my daughter doesn’t have any friends besides her brother?”

“A little, not entirely." Will says, sipping his whiskey. "I went through the same thing when Walter started school. You're some parts worried she’ll say something, some parts worried her friend will be over one day and… trip in the kitchen, so to speak. You're some parts afraid Mischa will drag them down and some parts afraid they’ll take her from you.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it.” Alana agrees, raising and crossing the room to the six-foot tall parrot cage that house Mischa's two little parakeets. “What made you stop worrying about all that?”

“Walter’s his own person. I never made a move to isolate him, if he wanted friends he had friends, if he didn't, and often he didn’t, I did things with him. The rare few friends he had never dragged him away from me and Molly, they never fixed his broken set of morals. My kid’s still a certified serial killer."

Alana hums in understanding and the two parakeets flutter from their perch onto her arm.

"You ever worry about Hell?” Will asks.

Alana comes back with the two little bird. “I think sometimes about religion. I never taught it to Mischa, and I'm starting to fear she’s going to idolizer Hannibal in place of being the atheist I was hoping for. Here take Twitchy.” She offers her arms to Will who takes the yellow and green bird. Twitchy. Named for her constant fluttering of wings despite rarely taking flight. Will rather likes Twitchy.

“We all idiolize Hannibal," Will says, petting the little bird with one finger "It’s what he wants. We all have shrine dedicated to him in our basements, we partake in ritual human sacrifice at his request. We create- or did create- glorious works of art at his request. We are all his willing disciples.”

“Hannibal is the god we never found in a church or the pages of a book.” Alana muses taking a sip of her own whiskey while the blue bird, La La, hops in her lap.

“So we, like all other religions that started as small cults, teach such devotion and loyalty to our children, and watch as the following grows and grows.”

“Do you think we’re brainwashing them?” Alana asks, watching La La flutter over to Will to join her sister.

“Do you think you’ve been brainwashed?” Will asks in return. “I’ll tell you what I used to tell Molly." He shifts to face Alana. "All child rearing is brainwash and conditioning. All parents pick a set of morals and believes, most commonly their own, and instill these morals and beliefs into their children. Teaching your child that being gay is bad because "God said so” is seen from the parents point of view as proper, and from normal people’s point of view and cruel brainwashing. We are simply practicing a less acceptable brand of brainwashing, Alana."

"It's doesn't sound any better when you say it like that."

"Do Michelle and Walter seem confused, or incapable of integrating with others, regardless of the interest in doing so?”

"No. I suppose not."

"Then we aren't doing anything wrong." Will says firmly as Twitchy and La La hop around between their laps, chirping at the humans for attention.

Alana moves over to Will and curls into his side. “I love you Will, you make everything make sense sometimes.”

“I love you too, Sweet Alana.” He says her pet name in tone of playful mocking.

“Darling William,” Alana tries to to mimic Hannibal's accent, and tries harder not to laugh when she fails.

“Do you still love Hannibal? I’ve never heard you say it.” Will asks.

“I do, yes. I held a lot of resentment toward him for what he was for the longest time, but, ultimately, he's family and I love Hannibal," she says, her head on Will's shoulder. "I am not, however, in love with him. Maybe for the five blissful minutes when I thought my perfectly sane, doctor boyfriend and I were going to have a baby and be a normal family did I think I was in love, but… My heart broke too fast for me to ever know for sure.”

“Can't live with him, can't live without him.”

“Are you in love with him Will?”

“I absolutely ache for him.”

Alana leans up, her face inches from Will and whispers “And do you ache for me?”

They do not make it to the bedroom, but the walls in the hallway would never tell a soul.


	6. The Good Man Mourns His Fellows Dead

The Chesapeake Ripper killed in quick succession of three or four, going months or even years in between. No victim has ever had any obvious connection to another beyond their killer, and the way they were mutilated and... displayed. He has never taken a victim from their home unless they lived alone, and instead took them at night, when they were out alone. The Ripper has been methodically killing with no foreseeable motive for years. He has never broken his pattern, and it was believed, and reasonable understood, that he never would. Until Eliza Carlson.

Jack knows the second he arrives on the scene that she is not a victim of a copycat. This is not debated, only the Ripper could string up a woman in front of her own church in a mockery of Jesus, and open her stomach the way he did. Or even. No, what is debated is what the Ripper's state of mind had been when he'd killed her. He broke enough of his rules to cause alarm among many.

They'd received the call from Eliza's husband this morning, to report his wife's disappearance. He told investigators there had been nothing odd about last night when he and his wife had gone to bed, and no, his dead dog hadn't barked once to wake them. Jack is terrified to realise this means the Ripper doesn't actually worry about being caught by a victim's roommate, that it wasn't fear that keeps the Ripper at bay, but simple convenience. And now the Ripper finds it perfectly convenient to kidnapping a woman right out of her bed with the husband none the wiser.

Then Jack sees the body of Eliza Carlson, and the first thing he thinks when he see the dried dirt packed into the place where uterus used to be is motive. The Ripper has never had any foreseeable motive, but when Jack gets the confirmation, from the pastor standing outside the yellow tape comforting fellow church goes, that, yes, Eliza was a vocal spokesperson against abortion, he has to turn away to cover his grin. The Ripper has a motive! A potentially traceable motive!

Then Jack turns back to his team and Zeller shows him the neck. "He cut her open while she was still alive. No surprise there, except that it was done sloppily. Quickly and in one go, but this wasn't done by the same hands that opened her up and removed the uterus and stomach."

“Probably not the same hands that sewed her shirt to her back either, this was done with perfect composure.” Price says from behind the forcible upright body, as he examines the way Eliza’s bloodied night shirt had been cut off of her after she'd bleed out and shaped and sewed to her in a mockery of Angel wings.  
\--

"Not the same hands?" Beverly asks later, when they've moved everything back to the Quantico. "You think the Ripper had an accomplice?"

"It's possible." Jimmy answers with a shrug over the dead woman's corpse.

“He broke his own rules last night though," Jack says. "It could just be a crime of passion, killing her spontaneously. He didn't prepare, or plan. He just when for it. He took the uterus of an anti-abortionist... Maybe she met him at one of her protests."

"He would've met her at an abortion clinic then. Maybe-" Jimmy starts.

"Maybe the Ripper's having a baby." Beverly finishes for him, expression just a awestruck as Jack figures his must be.

"Maybe the Ripper's a woman having the baby." Brian suggests.

"Okay, but if you or your girlfriend are having a baby, why kill a woman who's against abortions?" Zeller asks.

"Maybe the Ripper's didn't want the baby, and Eliza convinced the Ripper's woman is to keep it?” Jimmy says. "Bit hard to be a murderer with a baby in the house. Might've rubbed his conscience the wrong way."

“I'll see if I can track down where Eliza's latest protests have been, and if I can get a list of patients for those days." Jack says, practically bouncing with excitement. They've got him. They've got to have!

Despite the excitement of the day, nothing ever comes of the Ripper's motive. Every person they interview either had their abortion with full support of their families, or decided against it after talking with the doctor and their own families. The only thing any of them could say about Eliza Carlson was that she was loud, rude, and had a tendency to throw things.

The motivation of Eliza's death is changed to anger of over her rudeness, and that the removal of her uterus must have simply been an act of ironic humiliation.  
\--

Jack mets Alana's daughter Michelle when she is six months old, and the father, a psychiatrist and former surgeon by the name of Hannibal Lecter, when they invite him to dinner.

"Did you ever think about abortion Alana?" Jack asks at one point that night, when Dr. Lecter is busy in the kitchen, finishing up the next course.

"What? No!" She looks away from where she's trying to feed Michelle, sitting in a highchair at the corner of the table between her’s and Hannibal's seat. She gives him a scolding look, making Jack regret bringing it up.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. It's just the Ripper. We're pretty certain he's got a wife or girlfriend now, and that she's gotten pregnant. He, uh, killed an anti-abortionist."

"Oh. Well, no I didn’t. I was always happy to have a baby. Michelle's a blessing." Alana's tone tells Jack the conversation is over, and before he can ask more, Hannibal reemerged from the kitchen.

“I sense I’ve missed something?” Hannibal inquired of the painful silence once he’s served the next course and taken his seat.

“Jack was just talking about the Chesapeake Ripper.” Alana says with out looked away from Michelle, trying now desperately to get her to eat a bite of mashed sweet potato. “Come on, what's wrong with it Mischa? Tėti made it, I know you'll love it.”

“Yes... I read an article about him the other day. So sad, all those deaths.” Hannibal comments, taking the baby spoon from Alana, taking his turn attempting to get Mischa the eat, though she continues to refuses. “Oh Mylima Mischa, how you wound me.” He sighs with a smile and it baffles Jack that any parent would choose to be a killer.

He know it happens, he's busted enough doors down to save a child from their own parents to know it happened, but as Jack watches the two new parents with their little girl in Dr. Lecter's dining room, he just can't figure out why the Ripper would choose murder over family.

“Mischa, short of Michelle?” Jack asks in a desperate bid to change the subject.

“Technically short for Michael,” Hannibal answers, tone not reflecting the smile on his face as he pretends to eat Michelle’s spoon full of sweet potato. “But my late sister was named Mischa for whatever reason, and the name seems to have been rather feminized here in the States. I doubt she’ll have any troubles with name calling.”  
\--

After the murder of Eliza Carlson, The Ripper had finished his sounder, a simple one of three with no connections or seeable motive. The next sounder was another small one of three, eight months later, and it comes and goes with nothing further gained for the FBI except the dread for the Ripper's next round of unpredictable victims.

The next is a mortifying sounder of five, a little over three years after Eliza. It starts with the Wound Man, Jeremy Olmstead, and ends with Miriam Lass. Jack throws himself into the search for the Ripper, tries to figure out the connections she must have made, tries to find where Miriam found the Ripper, and he mourns her when no one sees, when he admits she's gone and he's to blame.

Alana knocks on his office door one night, when he's making no progress, but can't seem to make himself go home.

"What do you want, Alana?" He asks, incapable of covering his miserable mood.

"I came to invite you to a party." She says, smiling sympathetically as she lets herself in and sits on the opposite side of his desk. "Hannibal's throwing another big dinner party. I thought a night out would do you some good. You'll have to bring Bella of course."

Alana is one of the kindest people Jack knows, and he's thankfully for her kindness always, especially when he know it means she'll understand when he declines. "I'm sorry Alana, I can't. I have got to catch the Chesapeake Ripper, this madness can't keep going on, this man needs to be stopped!"

"Wearing yourself out isn't going to find him any quicker Jack. Come on, one night out with some friends can't hurt. I'm inviting a new teacher from the academy, Will Graham, too. He's gonna need some one he can talk to. Everyone else on the guest list is a friend of Hannibal's." She reaches into her purse and pulls out an easily recognizable envelope. A hand written invitation to dine with Hannibal Lecter, the very same as Jack has received on many an occasion.

He takes it with a reluctant smile. "Thank you. I don't think I'm coming, but give my thanks to Hannibal anyway."

Alana leans back in her chair, apparently not finished with her business here. She sits quiet.

"It's my fault the Ripper's killed Miriam." Jack says, resting his head in his hands. "I encouraged her to go out there and do what she was doing. There's no getting around this, because the Ripper does not allow victims to live. I just- I just don't understand why she's still missing."

"Still missing?" Alana questions, crossing her legs.

"The Ripper always displays his victims. Always. I don't understand him Alana, which means I can't catch him, which means more people are going to die and I'm going to send more people to die!" Jack rubs his hands down his face, his eyes are likely red from the stress he's trying to hide until Alana leaves.

"The Ripp-" Jack's phone interrupts whatever Alana was going to say. "Sorry, that's probably Bella," Jack apologize, fishing his phone out of his pocket quickly. The number is blocked and Jack almost doesn't answer. But he does. "Hello-"

"Jack, it's Miriam." Miriam's voice comes rushing at him in a terrified whisper, she's crying as she talks. "I don't know where I am. I can't see anything!-"

"Mariam!" Jack shouts, her name is all he can think to says and she keeps going.

"-I was so wrong. I was so wrong." She pauses.

"Maria, who did this? Did you see-"

"Please Jack." Mirian sobs. "I don't want to die like this!"

The phone cuts off.

"No! Miriam!" Jack stand and runs for the door. Someone who can trace this call has to be in the building it isn't that late! God he hopes it's not too late!

"Jack what happened?!" Alana shouts after him, as his runs into the hall. He doesn't answer and he doesn't turn back to see her face.

If he had he would've seen the wide smile that spreads across her face and she moves to follow him. He might have thought to ask why she waited so late to deliver Hannibal's dinner invitation. He might even have figured out, if he was really thinking, that Alana had known something was going to happen this evening and had placed herself in the best seat in the house from which to watch the events unfold.

Jack doesn't turn around once.  
\---

There's a brief moment of panic three weeks later when they find the rotting remains of Oscar Velasquez cocooned in his own bed sheets and a horrid tangle of steel wiring that will later be unfolded to reveal hastily shaped wings tied tight to the man's exposed spin, hung from a tree in his own backyard. Everyone fears the Ripper had abandoned his sounders and is beginning a massacre, until they realize not a single organ is missing and that his wife Maria has gone missing. Going by the blood stains in the bedroom, it’s clear the couple had been attacked in there by someone else. Maria had been bled dry there, while Oscar had been strangled, and moved to the back yard. This sort of kill is simply not the Chesapeake Ripper’s modus operandi.

The Mothman and his wife are labeled the victims of a poorly informed copycat, but Jack doesn't buy it. It's the... the wings that tells Jack the Chesapeake Ripper was involved. Making sick works of art is what the Ripper does. This is not the work of the Ripper, but it's not the work of a poorly informed copycat either. The copycat knew what the Ripper would see through the news. He wouldn't see the the body of Velasquez spread open on his team's examination table to show a lack of certain organs, not even Freddie Lounds could get a picture of that. No, the only thing the Ripper would see were pictures of the cocoon hung up in the tree surrounded by FBI. That's all the copy cat needed the Ripper to see. He trusted the Ripper to understand the rest of the message.

"It was a show of metamorphosis." Jack mutters to himself one night when he comes to this realisation that he will never learn he may be right, but for all of the wrong reasons, months after the Velasquez's case has run cold, while he's laying in bed with Bella. She's reading some old romance series about a time traveling British woman, and she's just reaches a very excellent point in which the woman is on trial for witchcraft, but she puts her book down anyway and looks at her husband.

"What?" She asks, face to picture of playful scrutiny.

"Nothing it's... pointless now. I just realised something about an old case." He replies turning on his side to face her.

"It didn't sound pointless." She lays down to face him too.

"The Ripper has a fan, and I don't think he's as uninformed as we thought. That's all." Jack doesn't want to talk about the Ripper. It's been long enough that the Ripper could start another sounder at any time. He could be roaming the street right now for all Jack knew, but he didn't want to think about it until he absolutely had too.

"You should stop chasing the Ripper, Jack." Bella says even though she knows he won't, because he needs to do it now. It's not pride, or enthusiasm for the job. It's personal, because the Ripper kidnapped one of Jack's agents and taunted him with it. The Ripper made it personal, and Jack will never give up. Bella tells him to anyways, reaching a hand out to rest on his cheek. "It's not healthy the way he's gotten into your head. You're too stressed. You need to give the case to someone else."

"I can't." He smiles at her.

"I know."

"Thank you, Bella."  
\--

Jack almost doesn't take the case that shows up on his desk two months later. Seven months, though he doesn't have any reason to make such a connection, after the disappearance of Miriam. He almost doesn't because the basic description reminds him of the Mothman. Three missing bodies and one mutilated man made to look like an animal. A wolf this time. He almost decides it's the Ripper's copycat and not worth his time. But then he keeps reading the report and learned that the organs were removed with Ripper like precision, and he knows he has to see it.

The man's name is Brian Epstein, and Jack for the first time in a long time doesn't know what to think when he arrives on the scene of a Ripper's murder. The blood is... not everywhere exactly, it's mostly around the campfire, and all over the chairs Brian's friends must have been in at the time of their deaths.

They can gather very little of what must have happened from the way the killer (and there is some debate whether it's the Ripper or the Copycat or someone else) has fixed the scene to his own liking before leaving. Everything that the four friends had brought on their illegal hunting trip is still there, from the beer cans to the tents to the guns. Nothing but Collin and Angelina Moore, and Paul Haight are missing.

Brian Epstein is the only victim displayed, and Jack relents that this was, mostly likely, the Copycat. Damnit. Epstein's been set up on all fours on the opposite side of the fire pit from where the blood covered lawn chairs are, and his clothes have been completely removed. The killer has taken the corpse of a wolf, and expertly skinned it, sewing the fur pelt on the man's arched back. The wolf's head is ripped apart at the jaw in a way reminiscent of a Glasgow Smile and secured tightly to Epstein's upwards turned head, who’s face has been completely removed, skinned to the bone. Howling at the moon Jack realises primal and animalistic. They will learn later that the gun used to kill the wolf was registered to Paul Haight, and Jack's only follow up questions will be why the killer mutilated Epstein instead.

The autopsy of Epstein reveals that this is definitely the work of the copycat. The Ripper's mutilations always take place after his victims have died. This killer killed with brutalization. With a hatchet that Zeller finds at the scene, which is covered in the blood of the Epstein and the Moore siblings. It is not covered in the blood of Haight however, and this is attributed to the fact the killed likely shot him in the head, going by his blood splatter pattern.

"Everything matches the M.O. of the Velasquez's murderer, apart from the organs and the brutalized killing." Jimmy confirms when he and the team have had more time with Epstein body.

"The killer used the same sort of hunting knifes to cut the wolf apart and skin it and Epstein's back as he used to carve out Velasquez's spin. He just went farther this time." Brian Zeller says.

“He took the organs with the same surgical precision as the Ripper too, only he used his hunting knife." Beverly adds. "Pretty impressive too, considering the difference in a hunting knifes and a scalpel."

Jack is forced to repress a sigh.

"Hey Ja- oh-kay!" The team turns to find Alana at the entrance turned half away with a hand over her eyes "Please cover him, that's awful."

"Like you've never seen a mutilated corpse before." Beverly rolls her eyes as she covers Epstein. "Okay it's safe. What's up?"

Alana peeks out from behind her hand, and seeing it's safe, lowers it. "I came to give everyone lunch. Michelle decided to start her weekend with Hannibal early, so leftover night was going to go to waste." She lifts up a cloth bag full of tupperware.

The team thoroughly enjoys Alana assortment of leftovers.

"Did you make all this from scratch?" Brain asks, taking a bite of the baked spaghetti he's hoarded all for himself.

"Hannibal does it too- obviously- and Mischa's gotten spoiled so I can't just make things out a box or she throws a fit. But I figure it's a better habit than dining on fast food, so I caved and started making everything myself too."

Beverly nods then changes the subject with a wide grin. "So Brian, it feel weird doing an autopsy on a guy named Brian?"  
\---

The Chesapeake Ripper does not kill for two years and Jack is almost ready to believe he's quite, or moved on to another form of murder and they're all simply calling him by another name.

Jack thinks about criminals alot, he has to, it’s his job. But more often than not he finds he can only think the Ripper, because maybe this isn't some random string of murders, maybe it's the Ripper's new M.O.? Or that last murderer they caught- what if he was the Ripper, but they only convicted him of those last two murders, when they could've gone for more? What if the Chesapeake Ripper was dead? What if he was an old man and he came into poor health and he died? What if he was buried in some cemetery and had had a nice funeral with all his relatives, the ones too distant to know and the one who would carry his bloody legacy to their own graves? This last one is Jack's greatest nightmare because it would mean the Ripper truly did get away with everything, that he'd have spent his whole life killing and suffered not a single consequence. That there would be no justice. That he would never know what happened to Miriam Lass or have the opportunity to pick at the Ripper until he finally finally understood what he was.

And Jack's obsession with the Ripper scares him because he doesn't feel like he can move on. Alana's daughter has started school, Katz is dating some guy in culinary school and all Jack's friends and coworkers are moving through their lives. He has Bella, and she's wonderful, but they don't go on many dates anymore, or vacations. They don't have children. And Jack's afraid it's his fault, that he's dragging her down with him.

Jack sees Mischa in the lobby of the Academy one day, sitting at the grand piano. She is wearing her school uniform, of course she is it's a Tuesday, her short hair is still a shock to see, and she's singing along to a bit of music with another little boy tapping away at the piano, who’s a few years older, in a matching uniform to hers. A classmate then? Or he must be a friend from her choir club, judging by their shared concentration on the sheet music. Jack wonders why Alana's picked him up from school too and brought him all the way down to Quantico. Either way Jack pauses, listening to them for a moment.

“Jack and Jill~  
Went up the hill~  
To fetch a pail of water~  
So they say~”

These children shouldn't be unsupervised in this building, even if one of their parents works there.

“The subsequent fall was inevitable~  
They never stood a chance, they were written that way~  
Innocent victims of their story~”

He hates to be that person, but he's going you have to take them to find Alana. Or he would've if a man with a teacher's ID hadn't shown up first. Jack recognizes him as Will Graham immediately, and he watches from the other side of the lobby as Graham approaches the two children and says "Come on Wally, we've gotta get back home before the rain starts or the dogs won't leave the house."

Graham has the boy’s school bag slung over his shoulder already and he takes Wally's hand as he stands. Will Graham has a son then. Jack has heard a lot about Graham, but it's all about his brain, and not his life, so Jack supposes he's a little vexed to learn even the introverted and unsociable Will Graham has a life and things to distract him outside of his job. Even Will Graham, who Jack hears a lot about from all lot of people, and whom he's only had one stilted conversation with in the Evil Minds Museum, has his life in better focus than Jack.

"Tell your mom I said thank you for picking Wally up from practice." Will tells Mischa.

"I will Mr. Graham. Bye Walter!" Mischa waves before turning back to the piano.

"See you tomorrow Michelle." He waves back before leaving with his dad.

Mischa starts up the song again, taking over the piano for her missing friend.

“Like Romeo and Juliet~  
T’was written in the stars, before they even met~  
That Love, and Fate, and a touch of stupidity~  
Would rob them of, the hope of living happily~”

She’s such a talented little girl, she's going to go places, Jack can tell. Not a mean bone in her body. She’ll charm her way right to the top.

"The endings are often a little bit gory~  
I wonder why they didn't just change their story~  
We're told we have to do what we're told but surely~  
Sometimes you have to be a little bit nau-ghty~"

"That's a cute song, Michelle." Jack says, interrupting her.

"Oh!" The kindergartner yelps, turning around. "Hi Agent C'awford! And thanks, it's a song from the Matilda musical. My friend Walter-" she point towards the doors "- showed me it. Also it's Mischa today."

Right. Mischa sometimes felt more masculine prefered her more masculine nickname, Jack wasn't small minded enough to ignore her request, but he could never quite get the hand or switching the pronounce for her in his head. Jack takes Mischa the long way around to her mother’s class and as they're walking past one the class with it's door open, reviewing a rather inappropriate murder, Mischa pauses to see.

"No, honey!" Jack says, pulling her attention back to him. "Don't look at that, it's for adults."

"What happened to the face?" Mischa asks. Jack isn't really the best at judging where kids maturity levels should be, but he thinks at only five, Mischa should be just a bit more upset than she seems as he takes her hand and leads her down the hall.

"Some very bad people did something very bad and hurt that man." Jack answers vaguely because this is the sort of talk Alana or Hannibal should have with their daughter, or son today he suposed, not him.

"My mom said you keep dead bodies here to prove who murdered them, in the forest-icks building." Mischa says. Maybe her parents have had this sort of talk with her already?

"We do, yes," Jack hesitates. "We hold them in special draws in the walls in the forensics labs."

"When I die, can I be buried into the walls here?"

Jack almost stops walking at the shock of what he hears. But then he remembers that kids say weird things all the time, and that's not really the worst he could've heard. The first words his own niece, Bella's brother's daughter, had ever spoken to him in fact, had been "I'm going to kill you" followed be dramatic evil laughter before she'd run off the her room. Nothing had come of it of course, she always been nice to him after that one small blip, so Jack didn't think this was too much worse than that. "We can't do that unless someone one hurts you Michelle- Mischa, and I don't think anyone's going to hurt you."

"How do you wanna die Agent C'awford?" Mischa asks, seeming unaffected by his slip up. Jack isn't sure how to answer that however so he says as much to her.

"That's okay. I'll figure it out for you, so it doesn't matter." Mischa pulls her hand out of Jack's and ducks into the nearest classroom, which turns out to be Alana's, thank God, before he can process her words.

If she wasn't five, and Jack didn't know children said weird things sometimes, Jack would think that was a threat. But Michelle is five... Maybe he should mention her daughter's comment to Alana?... No, children say weird things all the time. He wouldn't want to worry Alana, he'll just leave it alone.


	7. The Commoner Joins The Ripper's Court

The first move is made a few months later in February.

Will is finishing a lecture about a boring and generic murder, barely paying attention to his class when Jack Crawford walks in and asks to borrow Will's imagination. Will only hopes he won't be in prison before the end of the school year, as Mischa and Wally would never forgive him, or Hannibal for that matter, as he agrees to take a look.

"You're calling them abductions because you haven't found any bodies?" Will asks on the way.

"No bodies, no parts of bodies, nothing that comes out of bodies. Nothing."

Cannibalism, honoring every part. Will hears in his head. He says nothing.

Jack shows him everything they've gathered, and Will only gives him a fraction of what he's gathered. That all the other girls are dead, well he tell Crawford likely dead, but it's all the same. That they'll have to focused on Elise Nichols, even though he knows she's dead and being eaten as they speak. He tells Jack the girl they're looking for is one of the victims, even though she's not. The killer's golden ticket is his daughter, all the others are simply distractions so he won't touch her, because he loves his daughter, but he wants to kill her. This killer disgusted Will. He does not tell these things to Jack Crawford.

"I want you to get closer to this," Crawford says as Will tries to leave- not because he actually needs to, but because the Will he shows the world would need to- and God how stupid was this man? He know full well how potentially unstable Will could be, and he wanted Will to get closer.

"No." Will says. "You have Heimlich at Harvard and Bloom right down the hall. They do the same thing I do." He's going to let Jack talk him into this of course, but putting up a proper fight is necessary.

"That's not exactly true, is it? You have a very specific way of thinking about things."

"Has there been a lot of discussion about the, uh, specific way I think?" He knows there has, he'd wanted it that way.

"You make jumps you can't explain, Will."

"No, no. The evidence explains."

Please Crawford, dig your grave a little deeper it'll make this all the easier.

"Then help me find some evidences."

"I assume we'll be going to Minnesota?"

"Yeah, as soon as possible, I want you to talk with Elise Nichols family."

Will pretends to think it over, with a harsh look at Crawford. "Let me see if Dr. Bloom would mind watching my son while I'm away- our kids go to the same school." He adds though he knows Crawford knows this. "If she says no you are arranging for someone to pay the babysitter I have to hire."

"Deal."

Will leaves and head straight for Alana's office, where he locks the door behind him. Alana looks up with a worried expression, because Will never comes to her in public.

"What is it, Will?" She asks hastily. Will's lips twitch, and form a smile, then he opens his mouth to say something, and starts laughing, trying hard to compose himself.

Alana's not sure why he's laughing, but she can't help laugh a little too. "What is it Will!"

"Jac- ha ha- sorry, hold on!" Will takes a breath. "Jack Crawford has asked me to consult on a case."

Alana hadn't expected that, but she frowns, knowing what this means. "Which case?"

"Eight missing girls in Minnesota. Call Hannibal." He comes and sits at her desk, while the phone rings.

"And did you agree, my Darling Will?" Hannibal asks once Will has explained everything to him and Alana.

"Well yeah. He thinks I'm here asking Alana to watch Wally for the next day or so."

"And of course I will. So the White piece finally moved, how do we counter Hannibal?" Alana asks.

"I am tired of hiding all of my activities. Our first move shall be creating an excuse for Will and I to meet in public."  
\---

Minnesota is relatively boring. They find Elise Nichols in her bed which is something to everyone else, but the only interesting thing for Will is what he gains from delving into the Killer's mind. He learns the man is an idiot.

I wanted you, I was going to honor you. You were perfect Elise Nichols. And then I found something in you, something was wrong with some small part of you and I can do nothing with this small part. I cannot honor all of you so I must return you, I must apologize. I must-

Waste you. He waster Elise Nichols and it infuriates Will. Some small thing was wrong with her, and he couldn't honor that small part so he wasted the rest because he thought an apology was what he needed. Will can't wait to find this man so he can exact the vengeance Elise deserves.

A woman Alana has told him about, Beverly Katz, interrupts Will mental processes, and Jack's team all come in right behind her. He tells them it's only an apology, but no, she's not the Golden Ticket. Then Will leaves before anyone else.

Will's plane doesn't land in Baltimore until it's much too late to pick Walter up from Alana's, so he heads home alone. Will think this is for the best when he see the dirty stray dragging a rope tied to his neck down the deserted highway, because yes, he is definitely taking that dog home. He'll surprise Walter tomorrow after school.  
\---

Will dreams of Elise Nichols that night, and wakes up in a cold sweat for the first time in years. He knows something is wrong immediately, but it's the middle of the night, and there's really nothing he can do. Well nothing physically productive. He can however comfort himself is some way. He takes the prepaid flip phone, which is his only mean of safely contacting Hannibal, from his desk draw and dials his lover's number. It rings for just a moment too long, just long enough to make Will regret calling before Hannibal answers.

"Will? Is something the matter?" Hannibal's sleepy voice soothes Will immediately.

"No, uh, maybe actually." Will swallows. "I had a... very vivid nightmare. I've actually been having a lot disorienting dream lately, I just. This one scared me."

"And this made you feel the need to call me in the middle of the night?"

"I, yeah, sorry... I just... don't think I can fall asleep by myself right now." Will says sheepishly. Maybe he should've called Alana.

"Ah, I see. Well I will happily stay on the phone until you've fallen asleep. Tell me about these dream Darling." Hannibal sounds merciful concerned and not at all upset about the late hour.

"Thank you," Will says, laying back down. He tells Hannibal about his dreams, and Hannibal tells him that he will prescribe Will something for his sleep after Jack has assigned him Will psychiatrists. Hannibal spends another hour quietly telling Will nonsense about his perfectly normal day until he hears Will's quiet snoring through the phone.  
\---

Jack approaches Alana about Will later that week while she's crossing the campus. "Graham likes you he does think you'll plays any mind games on him."

"That's because I'm honest with him." Alana says plainly.

"You've been observing him since he started teaching here at the academy, yes?" Jack asks.

"I've never been in a room alone with Will not in years." Alana says instead of a direct answer.

"Why not?"

"Because I want to be his friend, and I am."

"It seems a shame not to take advantage- academically speaking."

Alana stops walking. "You already asked me to do a study on him, Jack. I said no. And anything scholarly on Will Graham would have to be published posthumously, anyway." Alana used to be good friends with Jack, now there relationship as slipped into a more professional sense, and professionally, she doesn't like the way Jack is talking about her Will.

"So, you've never been alone with him because you have a professional curiosity about him." Jack chuckles.

Alana frowns. "Normally I wouldn't even broach this, but what do you think one of Will's strongest drives is?" 

"Fear."

“Mm-hmm." Alana nods, it's not really true, but she needs to plant the idea in Jack's head.

"Will Graham deals with huge amounts of fear. It comes with his imagination." Jack says. Like he's educating her.

"It's the price of imagination." She corrects him.

"Alana, I wouldn't put him out there if I didn't think I could cover him- All right, if I didn't think I could cover him eighty percent" He asks when she gives him a look.

"I wouldn't put him out there. He's got a kid Jack, you're not just risking Will's mental Health, you're risking Walter's chance of growing up in a normal home environment." Alana snaps, expressing her opinion on the situation to yet another idea who won't listen.

Of course what she says is only half true. If anything had ever happened to Will before, Wally would have gone to live with Molly Cooper's mother and father, which would have been normal on some level, except for that Wally is accustomed to a certain lifestyle they would not be partaking in. Now though, Will will be filling out the paperwork appointing Alana as Wally's legal guardian in the event Will is incapable of taking care of his son.

In the eventual, if temporary, event.

"He's out there. I need him out there. Should he get too close, I need you to help make sure he's not out there alone."

Alana has to repress a sneer. "Promise me something, Jack. Don't let him get too close."

"He won't get too close."

Alana knows Jack means what he's saying, that he'll try his best, but she also knows he doesn't stand a chance against her and her family, and she resents him for not seeing it.  
\----

Will sits in on the autopsy of Elise and when when they mention Elise's liver was removed and replaced, Will plays up the dramatics about explaining that the meat was bad, that it was a waste, he finally tells them the killer is a cannibal. He practically growls the words, and judging by the side glances he guessed he's a step closer to needing a psych eval.

Will Graham meets Hannibal Lecter, the way it will one day go down in the text books, in Jack Crawford's office on a Thursday afternoon.

“Oh, Mr. Graham,” Hannibal says when Will enters, sounding perfectly surprised. “It's nice to see you again.”

“Uh… Hi…” Will pretends not to recognize Hannibal, playing up the antisocial recluse.

“Dr. Lecter. I’m a friend of Alana Bloom’s, you attended a dinner party at my house once.”

“Oh yeah, the uh, Fancy Dinner Party. My kid got sick from something you served.” Will says, sitting next to Hannibal and refusing to make eye contact.

“My apologies. I hope he was alright.”

“You two know each other?” Jack asks.

“Not really,” Will answers, examining a spot on the wall behind Crawford. “Dr. Bloom invited me to his house once when I started working here. We barely talked.”

“Okay… Well,” Jack says, trying to take back the conversation. “Dr. Lecter’s here working on a psychological profile.”

Needless to say Jack Crawford does not think it goes well. Hannibal thinks it goes perfectly, and he tell Will so that night via text messages.

A gift for your inspiring performance today.

It comes with an attached picture of a naked teenage girl mounted on a stag head, with Mischa sitting on her pale legs in her plastic murder suit. Her long blond hair is pulled tight in a bun, and her hands folded in her lap as she smiles brightly for the camera. Will wishes he didn't have to delete it, that he could frame the picture and hang it in the hallway like a normal family could, without getting them all arrested. He show the picture to Wally before deleting it.  
\---

Cassie Boyle's murder gives Will the much needed opportunity to explain a bit more of what he knows of the "Minnesota Shrike" to Jack's team, to allow them to catch the weak excuse for a cannibal that wasted Elise Nichols body over one inedible organ.

Hannibal shows up at his motel the next day with a delicious breakfast of eggs and lungs and Will can't stop thinking that he doesn't have to tiptoe around Hannibal and Alana anymore. And how much easier everything is going to be.

"Until, of course, you are institutionalized and I imagine you begin working against me so that I must fall back on a contingency plan." Hannibal says.

"I still don't see why we need Abel Gideon." Will says, taking another bite of his breakfast.

"Well I do pride myself on being one of the rare few minds you can not so perfectly empathize with. Trust me Darling, you will know what I want from you when the time comes."

"Hm. It's Sunday. Did you drop Mischa off at Alana's early just so you could come out here with me?"

"Yes, she and I had our fun Friday night, she understands I need to be out here with you. And speaking of how you need me, how have your dreams been?" Hannibal says.

"My dreams have been alright," Will says, taking another bite of food. "But I saw the most ridiculous thing late night, while I was awake. Only it didn't feel ridiculous at all while I was watching it."

"What did you see?" Hannibal's fork pauses on its way to his mouth.

"A stag... covered in black feathers. I was looking out the window, just thinking, and it walked across the parking lot, and it stopped and it looked at me, like right at me, before turning and walking into the woods."

Hannibal frowns. "Come to me." He sets down his fork and stands. Will obliges willingly and stands before Hannibal, who take his face gently in both hands, a gesture Will is very familiar with, and which he happily relaxes into. Hannibal presses his nose into Will's brown curls, before inhaling deeply. He repeats this slowing down the side of Will's head until he reaches his neck, where he places a gentle kiss before pulling away.

"Well I smell nothing out of the ordinary for the moment, though I fear you may have caught something. Finish your breakfast, it can only help."

“Or we could do something else with the morning.” Will hooks a leg behind Hannibal's knees and pulls him onto the bed. “This couldn't hurt either.”

“Yes it could.” Hannibal says, biting Will’s ear.  
\---

Hannibal and Will find Garret Jacob Hobbs's name at the first construction site they visit, and Will make quick work, when Hannibal give him a signal, of distracting the secretary outside with fallen papers, so that Hannibal can do... whatever it is Hannibal does in the office. He does not tell Will what he did once they're in the car on their way to Hobb's house, only tells him he will enjoy the results.

The result turn out to be allowing Will the opportunity to shoot Garret Jacob Hobbs several times in all the places that disable, but that to not kill, not immediately. He will likely die tonight, if not tomorrow, giving him just enough time to regret and wish for death in place of prosecution.

Will has no trouble holding Abigail Hobbs life blood in her neck, but Hannibal takes over regardless, silently telling Will as he brushes his hands aside that he must seem disturbed by what he's "almost" done to Hobbs. The truth of why they choose to save the girl goes unspoken between the two of them.  
\---

Will follows the ambulance to the hospital where both surviving members of the Hobbs family are being held. He cleans up and changes out of his bloodied clothes before finding Hobbs’s hospital room.

Hobbs is conscious, barley, and handcuffed to railing of his bed. Most of the bullets should have been easy to remove, with the exception of the one lodged just close enough to his left lung to force a tube down his throat some time tonight when his lungs fill with liquid, but plenty of air to have talked with the police already.

Hobbs eyes focus on Will for just a seconds and his and the heart monitor give a leap. Will quickly takes the monitor off Hobbs finger and places it on his own. “There, now they'll leave us alone.”

Hobbs look slowly from Will's fingers back to his face and hums in place of a response, too drugged to say anything. To drugged to remember this clearly.

“I don't have a lot to say,” Will tells the man. “I just want you to know you aren't forgiven. The Nichols don't forgive you, Elise does not forgive you. Your wife and daughter do not forgive you.”

“whah…” Hobbs breathers. Will come in closer holding his face right above Hobbs's.

“You wasted Elise and ruined her for nothing. You were going to do the same to Abigail today. She will never forgive you, I’ll make sure of it. And if she does I promise I will send her right to you. I’ll make her breakfast for dinner, how about that?”

Hobbs eyes are wide and he's mouthing “No no no” but little sound comes out. No one was guarding Hobbs hospital room, so when Will, smiling, places the heart-rete monitor back on Hobbs finger he easily explains to the nurse that he was with the FBI and actually looking for Abigail Hobbs room.

"What are you doing?" Will asks upon finding Abigail Hobbs’s room, taking the seat opposite Hannibal, referring to the hand Hannibal is holding despite Abigail's unconscious state.

"She would not let go of my hand at all while she was still awake, I felt she would like it if I stayed a little longer."

"Feeling paternal, Hannibal?"

"A little, I would certainly prefer someone stayed with Michelle or Walter were they even in such a situation. You feel paternal as well I presume? You have spent quite some time in Hobbs's head."

"Yeah, but it'll probably fade, I hate the man too much. Is that why you called to warn him. So he'd react violently, and I could shoot him? What did you say exactly?" Will asks.

"I did, and I simply told him it was a courtesy call, and that the FBI knew, before hanging up." Hannibal answers, stroking the back of Abigail's hand with his thumb. 

"I hope you weren't solely counting on my shooting him to death to cover your tracks, because he's likely already told the police a man with a weird accent called his house." Will says, a little upset that Hannibal might've been so reckless. 

"Worry not, I was impersonating Frederick, Hobbs will have nothing beyond the what I told him to relay to the police, and he will be dead before he ever gets to met Dr. Chilton." Hannibal reassures Will.  
\---

When Jack takes Will to investigate Hobbs's cabin, he suggests to Will that Abigail Hobbs might have been the bait. It makes since to Will, and while he tells Jack the contrary, he agrees Abigail Hobbs likely had a hand in the capture of the eight girls. Jack however seems to think she was willingly so, and Will knows she wasn't like her father at all. Wasn't like Walter and Michelle, to be more specific. But she had the potential.

Will has a brief moment where he pictures himself with his family in Hannibal's dining room. Everything was as it usually was, Hannibal was at the head of the table, Will was to his right and and Alana his left. Wally is next to Will, and Mischa is next to Alana. Everything is normal until he looks to his right, past Wally to see Abigail Hobbs smiling at him as she take a bit of the dinner Hannibal has prepared for the family.  
\---

Abigail Hobbs wakes up with tubes down her throat in a hospital room and she is needless to say terrified. She wakes up in the morning and spends her day being poked and prodded by doctors and nurses who will not tell her what's happening, so of course she thinks it's only fair not to tell them what's happening. She fakes amnesia. She tries to read in her bed for the a while, until a woman who is definitely not a doctor comes in with a plethora of shopping bags in hand.

"Who are you?" Abigail asks, setting the book aside.

The woman smiles "Hi. I'm Alana Bloom. I'm a psychiatrist."

Abigail watched her set all the bags on the ground. "What do you specialize in?"

"Among other things, family trauma." Alana Bloom sits in one of the chairs at the foot of her bed. 

"I asked the nurses if my parents were dead, and they wouldn't tell me. Said I had to wait for you." 

"I'm sorry you had to wait."

"I know they're dead." Abigail says. And feels the grief she'd been repressing all morning boiling to the top. "Who buried them?"

"They haven't been buried. Your mother was cremated per the instructions in her living will. Your father is more complicated." Alana tells her hesitantly.

"Because he was crazy?" Abigail asks.

Alana Bloom gives her a look that says she knows Abigail had told the nurses she did remember. That she saw Abigail's lie, but she she says instead "He wasn't crazy, Abigail. He was a psychopath, there's a difference, and I only meant because his autopsy hasn't been completed yet."

"Why not, they said I was only out a couple of days. Isn't that sort of thing done right away?"

"It is. Your dad made it to the hospital, and lasted a few days. He passed away last night."

Abigail had not been expecting that. Her dad had been here? Near her? She has a flash of a thought where she pictures her dad standing over her with the same knife as he had in their kitchen while she'd been unconscious and unable to protect herself. "Why didn't that man just kill him?"

"His name is Will, and I imagine because he's a very good shot and was more concerned with getting you safe then just killing your dad. They said you didn't remember, why did you lie?"

Abigail feels her lips form a thin line. "I just didn't want to talk to them about it... I want to sell the house. I guess it's mine now. I can use the money for college, get an apartment." She looks to the bags Alana Bloom had set beside the bed. "What are all those?"

Alana Bloom spends the rest of the day with Abigail. She answers all of Abigail's questions, and doesn't make her talk about anything she doesn't want to. Alana tells her about the men that rescued her, Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter.

Hannibal is a physiatrist too and, Abigail learns only when she asks about Alana's family in exchange for talking about her own, the father of Alana's five year old daughter. Will Graham is apparently a good friend of Alana's too, with his own son from a previous marriage. Apparently he's got some sort of empathy disorder that helped him catch her dad, but the way Alana explains it, it sound pretty cool.

"I'm glad you're so accepting. A lot of people only want to look at the instability of such a gift. Freddie Lounds for one has posted quite a few false and exaggerated articles on her blog recently." Alana tells her.

"Who's Freddie Lounds?" Abigail asks.

"A very rude woman who will say and do anything to get information for her articles." Alana seems hesitant to say the next part. " Abigail, she's been, um, covering your father's case. If she tries to talk to you, I can't stop you, but I would strongly advise against talking with her. She tends to twist the words of those she interviews to fit the story she wants to sell. I don't want her twisting your words."

"Yeah, I don't really want to talk with anyone about anything, least of all a some journalist." Abigail says, thinking it her own idea to dislike Freddie Lounds.  
\---

True to Alana's words Freddie Lounds does in fact find her way into Abigail's room the very next day. The woman tries to tell her things like how she "wouldn't lie to Abigail" and that she'd trade what she knows for what Abigail knows and wow was this woman serious? Abigail plays along, though she doesn't tell her nearly anything, until Lounds says her father was sick.

"He wasn't sick." She tell the journalist. "When someone behaves the way my father did, you can't label them sick. It makes it seem like he didn't know what he was doing. There's no way he didn't know what he was doing. I think you should go." She adds when she see two men, who she recognizes as Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter, hovering in her doorway.

Lounds makes no move to leave, instead says "Wouldn't you like to know how they caught him?"

"Sure." Abigail has to repress the urge to roll her eyes, because Lounds is going to say something ugly about the two men behind her and she doesn't know why but she thinks it would be funny if they hated this woman too.

"A man named Will Graham, who works for the FBI but isn't FBI. He captures insane men because he can think like them-" Abigail's eyes flicker to the doorway where Will Graham himself has stepped in rather noisily, and Lounds follows her gaze "-Because he is insane." Lounds finishes with a smirk as Graham, thinking she's one Abigail over.

"Would you excuse us, please?" Will Graham says to Lounds who stands, before introducing himself to Abigail. "Special Agent Will Graham."

"By Special Agent he means not really an agent. He didn't get past the screening process. Too unstable."

"I know." Abigail says irritably. "My physiatrist was happy to explain all of this yesterday. You can go now."

She leaves when she fails to give Abigail a business card, when Will Graham tucks into his own coat pocket.

Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter are two very kind men, who talk with Abigail with much the same respect only Alana Bloom and few other have since she woke up in the hospital. They do not tiptoe around the subject of her parents and what this all mean for her future, and she finds it somewhat comforting to vent to the two people that were there. She confesses to them her fear of nightmares and becoming like her father and they promise her that her worries will pass, and that they’d both gladly help her through anything, alongside Alana.

She tells them near the end of their visit that she wants to sell the house, but where Alana had merely nodded and said she didn't have to think about that now, Will tells her she wouldn't get the money, that it would all go to the victims families, and then she would really be left with nothing.

"I'm not sure that wouldn't be a better option." She tells him truthfully.

"No one should be left with nothing Abigail. That place it your home. And hold far more pleasant memories then it does traumatic ones." Hannibal says from where he stands in front of her and Will on the greenhouse bench.

"Well shouldn't the victim's family get the money? After what my father did to them?"

"Abigail, they don't deserve to take your home and your money from you. It's yours, you don't have to give anything away out of guilt, you don't owe them anything." Will tells her, putting an arm around her shoulder.

Abigail stays quiet for a minute. She did sort of owe them the money though. She'd help her father kill all those girls, and she did own them something, but it was still her house. Her bed was there and her laptop and the crummy tree house out back that her father had built when he was still loving. It was hers and she was just as much a victim of her father as any of those other girls. If fact, she bet if Will and Hannibal hadn't saved her in time, she would've been viewed only as his last victim, that the idea of her helping him would have never crossed their minds. They all just wanted someone to blame- never mind that they were right, they were just as bad as she was. God she wanted out of this nightmare before it got any worse.

"I just want to go home." She pleads with them.  
\---

Jack meet with Will, Alana, and Hannibal the next day where he throws a fit over Will's stupidly (or brilliantly, if you were looking at it that way) worded threat of Freddie Lounds, and Alana takes this long and tediously awaited opportunity to turn the subject onto something she and her family can manipulate Jack into- Abigail. Or she would if his goal wasn't the same and there's, that being getting Abigail back into her home for even a short period of time.

Jack actually thinks it would be a good idea, and because Hannibal and Will are both there to insure the worst happens she lets him have it and tells him what an awful idea it is, and how in all the worst ways it could go wrong, leaving just enough room for Hannibal to argue, but not enough for Jack.

Alana Bloom may want to hurt Abigail in just the right ways to gain what she wants, but a least she'll admit she's doing it for corrupt and unjustifiable reasons. Jack Crawford on the other hand, he actually thinks hurting the poor girl's traumatised psyche can only be helpful, or he flat out doesn’t care. Alana Bloom decides that night, while the family is walking together through the field behind Will's house, that they are adding "Destroy Jack Crawford" to their list of unethical family agendas.

"I mean what kind of an ethical man is willing puts a child in that sort of situations before any of the three murderers in the room?" She huff as they walk, watching Walter and Mischa run ahead with the dog pack in cool night air.

“Crawford isn’t an ethical man Alana. He just pretends to be.” Will says, watching Mischa wander a little farther off the beaten path.

Alana isn't even too sure she herself would care any more about another person's moral standing if they didn't directly concern what she wanted. What if she wasn't interest in adopting Abigail into her family? Then would she care about the girls trauma? Probably. Alana still cared about her patients and their recovery, she’d just had little trouble keeping a distance from many of them since, well, since Eliza Carlson.

Alana watches the mud cling to her boot as they walk. Jack has forgotten his place, he needs a thorough lesson in humility. “How’s Miriam doing, Hannibal?”

“Well enough, why?” Hannibal answers, taking her hand in his.

All three of them are required to be apart of Abigail's visit to her home- Will because he is part of the team investigating the case, Alana because she is Abigail's psychiatrist, and Hannibal because he is Will's- so a babysitter is hired at Crawford's begrudging expense to show up at Alana's house the next morning to watch the kids while the adults plotted.  
\---

Abigail's first day back in Minnesota goes okay. Someone's graffitied her house with "CANNIBALS" on her garage, and all of her belongings are packed in boxes, but she see Marissa and for just a few minutes and while they talk Abigail feels like she could be okay. It doesn't last because the brother of one of her vi-her father's victims shows up and ruins everything, screaming at her, and God she's terrified for a moment that he really knows and they'll all find out. But they don't. Marissa throws a rock at him, and then Doctors Lecter and Bloom are there with Mr. Graham and Abigail feels okay again. For the moment. It could all be worse she tells herself. They could know. She misses the part where Dr. Lecter covers a blood- soaked rock in leaves and the way Mr. Graham nods just enough as Dr. Bloom takes her back inside.

Abigail is still reeling the next night after they find Marissa, poor Marissa, when they visit her home again. She almost scream when she stabs the man- no, when he runs into her knife- no, she draws the knife up- he gut himself- He falls to the floor and blood pools around him.

She has an illogical flashback to when she was younger and she watched Interview With A Vampire with her parents. She remembers one scene where the little girl, Claudia, had slit the neck of her own "father" and blood had pooled the same as it does now in front of Abigail. She remembers Claudia being lifted out of the way by the other vampire and wishes she had someone to do the same for her as the blood touched the toes of her boots.

She hears Alana call her name from upstairs and yes, they'll help, they'll protect her.  
Carefully she steps around the ugly red staining the flood. Hannibal sees her first, but Alana rushes to her, and Abigail almost expects to be hugged, comforted, she almost reaches out, when Alana has her by the wrist stopping her blood stained hands from touching anything.

"Oh, Abby honey, what happened?" Her voice is sweet, calm. She's isn't surprised at Abigail's blood covers hands, but why not? "Abigail?"

"Abigail!" Hannibal's voice draws her from her thoughts. "Show us what you've done."

She knows somethings wrong when they tell her what she already knows- that she gutted Boyle-butcher him and when they don't call the police, but offer to help her hide the body instead.

"What- I don't- I didn't mean to..." Abigail tries to explain.

"That's not how they'll see it, Abby." Alana says, one arms around Abigail as they sit on the floor in from the the dead boy, the other running through her hair.

"They'll see what they wish too, and that will be your capacity for murder, and that you are an accessory to the crimes of your father." Dr. Lecter says plainly.

"I don't understand. What's wrong with you guys? You should- you shouldn't-"

"It's our job to help you, Abigail." Says Alana, "What else would we do, but anything you asked?"

They watch her, wait for her to say something. To make a decision she realises. These two government psychiatrists are seriously willing to risk their lives and their careers, and their family, because they have a daughter Abigail remembers. Doctors Hannibal Lecter and Alana Bloom will help her if she asks, and she could waste time wondering why or, "Will you please help me?"

Alana takes Abigail upstairs right away and helps her wash her hands in the bathtub, not the sink, she takes off Abigail's jacket and runs the hems of the bloody sleeves under the warm stream until not even the tiniest discoloration remains. Alana finally breaks the silence when she tells Abigail to take the hair-drier out of one of the boxes on the counter and dry her jacket, while she takes Abigail's boots and runs then under the warm water nexts. Abigail did realise how much blood she'd stepped in until she sees the water run red.

"You're... really good at this..."

"Well, this isn't the first time I've had to clean the blood from a child's clothes." Alana says, prying a little clump of dirt that's covered in blood from between the grooves in the heel of Abigail's boot.

"It's... not?" Abigail prompts.

"You kids that get assigned me to are my responsibility, what else would I do?" Alana smiles to herself, handing Abigail her shoes. "Dry these with a towel and we'll go pack up any of your belongings still left out. Hannibal will have finished cleaning your tracks by then."

It's not a lie that Alana has cleaned blood from the clothes of other children excluding her own. Ever since her Becoming she's found herself with more and more of the hopeless cases, of children no one though could be help, children everyone had more or less giving up on and we're simply waiting for them to make a big mistake. She found the cases and requested them because in one of the fewer and fewer aspects in which she and Hannibal differ is that she genuinely what's to help her patients. Because killer children are still children. Because everyone makes mistakes, and everyone needed a confidant.

Hannibal twists minds and makes killers of adults and children alike. Will finds killers and collects their mindsets for himself and, if he wishes, he points the authorities toward them when he’s done. Alana, if she is so inclined, helps children get away with murder.

And hour later, when they head down stairs with boxes full of Abigail's things, Hannibal has cleaned every spot of blood, from the stairs and halls and even the bit that had seeped into the corner of the rug in the living room. He's gotten rid of the body and the evidence of her crimes, now he stands by the front door smiling.

Well what else would he do? She asks herself, as he holds the front door open for her.

They leave and they never come back. Nobody calls calls the police. Nicholas Boyle simply disappears.


End file.
